PROCESSIONALS 


PROCESSIONALS 


By 
JOHN  CURTIS  UNDERWOOD 


"For  the  mind  of  man  is  marching  past 
perdition  through  the  night" 


MITCHELL  KENNERLEY 
NEW  YORK-  MCMXV 


COPYRIGHT,  1915,    BY 
MITCHELL  KENNERLEY 


PRINTED  BY  VAIL'BALLOU  COMPANY 
BINGHAMTON,  NEW  YORK 


IN  MEMORIAM 
LOUIS  POTTER 
OBIT  MCMXII 


3G0412 


FOREWORD 

Leading  the  long  procession  through  the  midnight, 
Man  that  was  ether,  fire,  sea,  germ  and  ape, 
Out  of  the  aeons  blind  of  slime  emerging, 
Out  of  the  aeons  black  when  will  went  groping, 
Finding  the  fire,  was  fused  to  human  shape. 

Heading  the  dreary  marches  through  dark  ages; 
Where  the  rest  perished  that  the  rest  might  be, 
Out  of  the  aeons  raw  and  red  of  bloodshed, 
Man  that  was  caveman,  found  the  stars.     Forever 
Man  to  the  stars  goes  marching  from  the  sea. 

Man  that  was  caveman  mounts,  and  makes,  and  measures, 

Atoms  and  oceans  rules.     And  to  his  will 

Storms  and  the  stars  pay  tribute.     All  we  bring  thee, 

To  thy  last  altar  Life,  today.     Adoring 

To  our  last  breath  we  lift  our  living  still. 

All  that  we  learned  and  loved  we  bring  and  bless  thee; 
All  of  our  toils  and  tears  to  pay  thy  price. 
All  of  our  sins  and  shames  are  thine.     Forever 
Man  that  was  slave  goes  marching  forth  to  freedom, 
Till  his  last  triumph  turns  to  sacrifice. 

Peconic,  9-25-14 


CONTENTS 


COSMICS 


LES  FORTS 

THE  WEAK 

ARCHANGELS 

THE  SUMMIT 

OLYMPIADE 

REVENANTS 

ADVENTURERS 

SAILORS 

SOLDIERS 

PRIESTS 


MODKRNS 


A  PORTRAIT 

THE  TEST  TUBE 

THE  NEW  STAR 

SCIENCE  AND  THE  EDITOR 

BURNT  SACRIFICE 

THE  BRIDGE  BUILDER 

CONGRESS  CONVENES 

COMMENCEMENT 


PAGE 
3 

6 
9 

12 
15 

18 

20 
23 
25 

38 

33 
35 
37 
40 

43 
44 
47 
49 


CONTENTS 


THE  POLICE  MAGISTRATE 
THE  PUBLIC  LIBRARY 


HELEN 

MANNEQUINS 

THE  HANDMAID 

LA  GITANA 

ANNUNCIATION 

A  WOMAN 

BEDTIME 

THE  OLD  MOTHER 

HER  BIRTHDAY 

EVE 


WOMEN 


ARTS 


THE  LEADER 

THE  RECITAL 

THE  DEAD  SCULPTOR 

THE  SECRET 

THE  TOUCHSTONE 

THE  SICK  EDITOR 

ART  IN  THE  SLUMS 

THE  CURATOR 

PICTURES  FOR  MEN 

TRUTH 

REGIONAL 
LITTLE  BRIDES  OF  MARY 


PAGE 
52 
55 


59 
61 

63 
64 
67 
61 

7i 
72 
74 
76 

81 


89 
9i 
93 
96 

98 
101 


109 


CONTENTS 

PACE 

THE  HOST  IN  THE  HILLS  m 

KARMA  "4 

BISKRA  "6 

COVENT  GARDEN  "9 

THE  SALESMAN  121 

NATURE  AND  THE  PIT  123 

APRIL  IN  THE  LUXEMBOURG  125 

SOLDIERS  OF  LIFE  127 

EMIGRANTS  130 

THE  OPEN  QUESTION 

THE  OPEN  QUESTION  US 

SURVIVAL  137 

HEART  OF  FIRE  14° 

THE  LAST  VISTA  142 

SANCTUARY  '44 

MARKING  TIME  146 

THE  SOUL  HUNTER  «49 

TOMORROW  152 

PRACTICAL  PEOPLE  154 

TOYLAND  157 

PAIN 

THE  CANCER  WARD  161 

CHRIST  IN  THE  ASYLUM  164 

MILL  CHILDREN  166 

GUTTER  SLIME  168 

CAMP  FOLLOWERS  170 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

THE  BREAD  LINE  ,73 

THE  LOCK-STEP  l?6 

IN  HOSPITAL  ,79 

THE  OLD  lgl 

BLIND  184 

PEOPLE 

COMMUTERS  rg9 

NINE  O'CLOCK  ,92 

THE  WIRETAPPER  ,94 

THE  AIRMAN  ,96 

THE  SIGNAL  TOWER  x99 

THE  CONSTRUCTION  GANG  202 

THE  LINESMAN  204 
THE  ACCOUNTANT 


207 
MOVIES  210 

THE  PIT 


213 

MOODS 
KINSHIP  AT  DAVOS 


219 

A  REST  22 , 

FLOOD  TIDE  223 

PLEIN  AIR  225 

SATURDAY'S  TRAIN  227 

WELCOME  230 

CHILDREN  2J2 

BED  RIDDEN  235 

PLAY  RITUAL  237 

MACHINE  MADE  24o 


CONTENTS 
THINGS 

PACE 

THE  EARTH  MAN  245 

AIRORA  247 

THE  GOLDEN  GIRL  249 

THE  GARGOYLES  251 

THE  STONE  PILE  254 

FLEET  MANOEUVRES  256 

GLOUCESTER  SCHOONERS  259 

THE  ROAD  261 

THE  OVERLAND  TRAIL  265 

THE  OLD  HOUSE  269 

ENVOY  272 


COSM1CS 


LES  FORTS 

WK  \verc  spawned  in  lava  mountains.     From  the  surf 
line  of  the  sea, 
We  were  cast  on  desert  islands  when  the  world  began  to 

be. 
Rocks  were  hard  to  make  us  harder.     Storms  were  strong 

to  make  us  strong. 

Ami   our   will    was   set   and   tempered    where   the    frosts 
were  sore  and   long. 


Glaciers  drove  us.     We  retreated  till  we  overtopped  the 

snow. 
Past  the  passes  pierced  the  mountains:  found  the  valleys 

warm  below. 
We   went   marching   past    perdition    with    a   purpose    ill 

conceived 
Till  we  made  us  gods  of  granite,  and  a  Law  that  we 

believed. 


Then  we  made  us  camps  and  cities,  for  our  cattle,  for 

our  wives. 
And   we   found    us   gold   and   silver,   and    we   purchased 

power  with   lives. 
And  we  made  us  ships  and  seamen.     Master  craftsmen 

we  became. 
And  we  wrought  us  arts  and  letters ;  blew  a  bubble  that 

was  fame. 

3 


*  LES  FORTS 

And  our  strength  became  our  weakness.     We  were  wasted 

in  the  night. 
And  we  lost  the  stars  in  lewdness  that  blasphemed   all 

law  and  light. 
And  we  bred  us  filth  and  fevers  till  our  children  were 

as  slaves 
In  the  streets  of  dying  cities,  and  our  gods  we  laid  in 

graves. 


Still   we  lusted   for  the  open,   for  the  sea,   and   for  the 

sun. 
There  we  marveled  at  the  mountains  and  the  deeds  that 

men  have  done. 
There  we  sought  a  Voice,  a  Vision;  till  our  doctors  of 

disease 
Out  of   travail   pangs  of  ages  brought   to   birth   a  Soul 

that  sees: 


Made  a  mind  that  masters  slowly  want  and  weakness, 
storm  and  time: 

Wrests  her  secrets  from  the  midnight ;  fills  all  space  with 
rythm  and  rhyme: 

Tears  the  rotting  veils  of  vision  from  its  Truth  it  dares 
to  face : 

Sees  in  man  his  own  salvation,  finds  in  fear  its  last  dis 
grace  : 


LES  FORTS  5 

Binds  new  burdens  on  the  strong,  and  sets  them  sterner 

handicaps; 
Spends  their  strength  in  ceaseless  striving  till  they  meet 

the  great  Perhaps; 

Lends  itself  to  lift  the  fallen  in  its  last  crusade  of  light. 
For  the  mind  of  man  is  marching  past  perdition  through 

the  night. 

Marseilles,  5-21-14 


THE  WEAK 

Wl    were  born  of  night  and  terror  in  a  wilderness  of 
fear. 
We   were   made    to   be   your   burdens   till   your    tyrants 

disappear. 
Hatred,  greed,  despair,  for  ages  were  our  grandams  and 

our  sires: 

We  were  mangled  in  the  mountains,  ringed  around  with 
frosts  and  fires. 

Starving  men  begat  in  horror  our  forerunners  weak  as 

we. 
Sickly  mothers  gave  us  suck.     We  lost  our  brothers  in 

the  sea. 
We  were  seized  and  we  were  shaken  by  a  million  mouths 

of  pain. 
We  were  trapped  and  we  were  taken,  and  in  torment  we 

were  slain. 

We  were  slaves  to  lusts  that  slew  us  slowly.     We  were 

slaves  to  toil. 
Chain  gangs  marched  across  the  meadows.     Rotting  figs 

and  rancid  oil 
Were  our   rations.     We  went   naked   in   the   galleys,   in 

the  sun. 
We  were  slaves  to  lies  that  slew  us  slowly,  surely,  one 

by  one. 

6 


THE  WEAK  7 

Slaves  to  gods  debased,  like  devils  in  our  masters'  coward 

minds; 
Old    traditions,   superstitions,    idols   born   of   prayer   that 

blinds; 
Creeds  as  cruel  as  their  quenchless  hell;  the  scapegoats  of 

their  sins. 
Making  of  its  fears  a  fetish,  slowly  life  to  freedom  wins. 

We  are  slaves  that  snap  their  fetters,  one  by  one,  and 

year  by  year. 
We  come  stumbling  from  our  dungeons  till  the  sun  and 

stars  appear. 
Wear>-,  wounded,   falling,  dying,  in  your  streets  of  lies 

obscene, 
We  go  groping  through   the  shadows  to  a  land   where 

life  is  clean. 

Little  children   in   your   mills,   and   babies  butchered    in 

your  streets, 
Men  in  mines  you  doom  to  darkness;  women,  life's  last 

vile  defeats, 
Lawyers,  liars,  scribes  and  teachers  who  a  nation's  soul 

betray ; 
Perjured  priests  and  healers,  slowly  stumbling  toward  the 

light  of  day. 


8  THE  WEAK 

So  we  have  defiled  for  ages  out  of  darkness.     Now  we 

see 
New  salvation  made  for  millions,  nearer.     So  our  thoughts 

go  free. 
Year  by  year  you  cure  our  bodies ;  teach  our  rotting  souls 

to  know 
Will,  that  mind  shall  make  immortal,  life's  last  fear  shall 

overthrow. 
We  were  weak  to  make  you  stronger.     Like  your  children 

we  shall  grow. 

Pe conic, 


ARCHANGELS 

BY  the  bones  that  fell  before  them  they  were  blooded 
to  the  trail, 
By   the  ghosts  that   dared   the  desert,   dying  they   have 

grasped  the  grail. 
Like  the  substance  lost  of  corals  slowly  risen  from  the 

sea, 

By  the  faith  that  failed  and  faltered  we  were  fitted  to 
be  free. 

By  a  star  that's  dead  two  thousand  year,  you  steer  across 

the  night. 
By   the   force  of   fallen   waters   I   am   switching  on   the 

light 
In   my   study   that's   a   temple   and   a   treasure   house   of 

souls, 
Where  the  strongest  still   are  silent  in   the  shadows  of 

their  goals. 
Standing  armies,  rank  on  rank  of  truth  eternal.     Round 

the  walls, 
Round  the  shelves  a  light  unearthly,  sprayed  like  radium, 

lifts  and  falls. 

There    they    stand    in    silent    test    tubes    charged    with 

chemicals  of  thought, 

Elements  of  life,  its  cultures,  out  of  chaos  slowly  wrought, 
Force  that's  free  from  flesh  forever,  cells  of  one  immortal 

Mind; 

9 


io  ARCHANGELS 

Man  that  forth  from  night  and  ether,  word  by  word  his 
faith   defined. 

Word  by  word  —  the  apes  have  chattered  —  word  by  word 

of  fraud  and  fear, 
From  the  shamans,  from  the  sibyls,  from  the  priests  we 

had  to  hear. 
Year  by  year  we  broke  their  idols,  broke  their  shackles, 

fought  the  shades; 
Fought  with  beasts  in   light's  arena,  every  lie  that  life 

degrades. 
Blow  by  blow  we  rent  the  barriers,  step  by  step  more  near 

we  trod 
To  the  threshold  of  tomorrow  and  the  secrets  gray  of 

God. 

Word  by  word  we  wrote  our  gospels,  line  by  line  our 

letters  set, 
I>ost   illusions,    loves   and    lustings,    forced   the   feeble   to 

forget : 
Found  a  force  that  growing  stronger  still  than  atom,  germ 

or  star; 
Cringing  once   in   shame  to  shadows,   stands  that   truth 

whose  thoughts  we  are. 

Here  its  shrine  and  here  its  powerhouse  waits  till  all  our 
lines  are  laid, 


ARCHANGELS  1 1 

Dynamos  and  coils  connected,  through  a  world  that  sick, 

afraid, 
Shaken  with  the  crash  of  churches,  dumb  with  anguish 

longs  to  see 
Sunlight  in  its  shameful  places.     Here  our  surgeons  set 

you  free, 
Snap  your  shackles.     Thought  forever  and  the  work  of 

thought  alone, 
Earth  outliving,  serve  the  Highest;  soar  adoring  round 

the  throne. 

S.S.  Chicago,  4-16-13 


THE  SUMMIT 

WE  went  climbing  in  the  morning  from  the  valleys, 
from  the  cities  black  of  men. 
Something  called   us  to  the  sky  line,   for  the  sky  larks 

soared,  the  light  was  lifting  then. 
We  went  climbing  in  the  sunshine.     We  went  singing. 

We  went  rivaling  the  sun. 

But  our  singing  ceased,  our  throats  were  choked,  our 
breath  was  battling  long  before  the  day  was  done. 

We  went  climbing  from  the  shore  line,  from  the  shallows, 

the  unsounded  depths  of  sea, 
Where  the  corals,  the  crustaceans,  the  sea  lizards,  all  our 

crawling  life  began  to  be. 
We   went   climbing   through    the   shadows,   through    the 

jungles,  where  the  tiger  and  the  ape 
Lurked   and   lingered,   watched   and   hungered,   crawling, 

crouching,  lest  our  stragglers  should  escape. 
We  went  climbing  past  the  caves  where  first  our  fathers 

lit  their  fire. 
Fallen  embers  from  their  altars,  hopeless  hungers,  flaming 

horrors,  nursed  the  flame  of  our  desire. 

We  went  climbing  toward  the  snow  peaks,  toward  the 
limits,  toward  the  light  beyond  the  snow ; 

Heacons  quenched  and  ruined  watch  towers  labored  past. 
At  last  we  turned  to  watch  the  world  below 


THE  SUMMIT  13 

Where  a  cross  stood  sagging,  slanting,  slowly  sinking  by 

a  bare  deserted  shrine, 
Close  beside  the  open  adit,  like  a  hungry  mouth  of  nothing 

of  an  old  abandoned  mine. 

We  went  climbing  past  the  past  that  time  has  gutted, 

ending  empty  works  and  hollow  creeds. 
We  went  climbing  towards  tomorrow,  towards  the  truth 

that  out  of  sorrow  shapes  our  human,  our  immortal 

needs. 
One   by  one  my   brothers  staggered,    fell   and   lay ;   and 

dying  drove  us  on  before. 
Last  my  love  and  I  alone  were  left  till  day  grew  grey,  and 

tricked  and  tripped  us  more  and  more; 
Marred  her  face,  her  brave  eyes  hid.     At  last  I  lost  her 

where  a  swirl  of  mist 
Mocked  my  eyes,  my  cries.     But  something  pulsed  within 

me,   crept  behind   me,   forced   and    flogged   me  to 

persist. 

Something    cried    "  She    may    be    strong    and    true,    and 

stronger,  truer  too  than  you, 
You  may  meet  her  at  the  summit  when  the  sunlight  lights 

the  falling  fires  of  life  that  flame  anew." 
We  went  climbing  through  the  blackness  until  memory 

merged  in  pain  that  senseless  struggle  flayed  away. 


14  THE  SUMMIT 

Climbing,  clutching,  creeping,  kneeling;  fainting,  falling, 
rising,  reeling;  with  the  weight  of  night  I  wrestled. 
Suddenly  I  won  today. 

So  despair  I  passed  at  last.     Alone  I  scaled  the  summit: 

saw  the  dawn ; 
Higher  snow  peaks,  wider  ranges,  like  the  lines  of  God's 

gray  gospel,  like  His  secret  thoughts  withdrawn; 
Wrote  my  word  in  straggling  letters;  piled  my  cairn  with 

fingers  numb ; 

Watched  the  myriad  marching  banners  of  the  sunrise  up 
ward  come ; 
Gathered  breath  and  tightened  belt,  and  turned  towards 

endless  stairs  of  stone, 
Flaming  up  to  Life's  last  summit,  where  the  souls  that  live 

to  struggle,  where  the  strong  in  desolation,  trace 

slow  trails  of  truth  alone. 

New  York,  1-6— 13 


OLYMPIADE 

Wl    uho  are  sons  of  the  North,  of  the  hills,  of  the 
woods,  of  the  sea, 
Sons  of  the  men  that  our  earth  has  sent  forth,  its  makers 

and  masters  to  he; 
This  is  our  song,  and  the  stress  of  our  hrain,  the  heat  of 

our  heart  and  the  tread  of  our  feet ; 
That  is  wrought  into  triumph  through  toil  and  through 
pain,  and  the  will  that  is  steel  when  the  mighty 
shall  meet. 

Now  the  runners  are  poised.  They  are  tense  on  their 
mark,  like  an  orchestra  tuning  its  strings; 

Till  a  pistol's  report,  like  a  spark  in  the  dark,  has  spurred 
them  and  shod  them  with  wings. 

And  each  movement  is  music,  each  stride  is  a  rhyme  and 
a  rhythm.  And  the  beat  and  the  scrape 

Of  the  feet  on  the  track  are  like  currents  that  chafe 
round  the  bends  in  their  banks.  Like  a  cape 

That  is  girdled  by  surf,  the  last  corner  is  turned.  Like 
the  race  and  the  rush  of  the  tides 

They  break  down  the  home  stretch.  The  runner  is  breast 
ing  the  tape.  And  his  soul  in  his  strides 

Sings  the  song  of  the  blood,  of  the  breath,  of  the  brain, 
of  the  bones  and  the  sinews  and  thews; 

The  song  of  the  strong,  of  the  fullness  of  life  that  its 
forces  must  master  and  use; 


16  OLYMPI4DE 

The  song  of  the  strength  and  the  sleight  of  the  hand,  and 
the  muscles  like  fighting  men  trained, 

That  advance  and  retreat  as  the  will  gives  the  word,  till 
the  battle  is  drawn  or  is  gained. 


And   the  strong  men   advance  to  their  trial.     They  are 

shrewd  with  their  grapples  and  weights. 
And    the   wrestlers   lie   locked.     They   draw   breath    for 

a  while.     And  the  primitive  terrors  and  hates 
Of  the  cave  man  who  first  cast  a  stone  at  despair,  are 

this  shot  putter's  sudden  reserves. 
Like  the  head  of  a  lance,  like  the  fang  of  a  snake,  as  he 

summons  his  sinews  and  nerves 
For  one  moment,  one  task,  he  is  man;  he  is  more;  he  is 

all  that  creation  has  won 
Out  of  the  chaos  and  night ;  one  more  lunge  to  the  light ; 

one  more  stride  toward  the  stars  and  the  sun. 

This  is  the  song  of  the  blood,  of  the  sire,  of  the  son,  of 

the  sister,  the  mother,  the  wife ; 
All  that  flow  by  our  sides  like  a  river  in  flood,  through 

the  veins  of  a  race  that  life  strains  out  of  strife. 
This   is  the  song  of  the  breed,  of  the  lean  Viking  sea 

wolves  by  land  and  by  sea, 
That  ran  round  the  world  till  they  trained  to  succeed ; 

that  can  master  tomorrow  and  all  that  shall  be. 


OLYMPL4DE  i; 

And  their  footfalls  are  singing,  their  runnings  are  runes. 

And  they  run  as  the  waves  and  the  rivers  must 

run; 
Like  the  wind  and  the  rain  and  the  throbbing  of  pain, 

like  the  winging  of  birds,  like  the  light  of  the  sun. 

And  like  rest  after  struggle,  like  sleep  in  the  night;  in 
the  lull  of  the  shouting,  the  pause  of  the  song, 

Comes  a  moment  immortal  of  love  and  delight  in  the 
souls  of  the  thousands  that  echo  the  strong. 

Though  the  breath  of  the  runner  may  falter  and  fail  to 
morrow,  he  lives  to  his  limit  today  ; 

One  note,  and  one  word,  and  one  stride  on  the  trail  of 
the  race  that  must  run  till  the  stars  shall  decay. 

Stockholm,  /- 


REYENAXTS 

THERE  is  a  day  of  all  the  saints,  and  then 
A  day  of  all  the  souls  of  God  on  earth, 
All  the  faint  forms  wherein  He  found  himself 
Fulfilled  ;  or  failed.     The  last  warm  wistful  days, 
Drifting  with  haze  and  haloed  with  faint  sunlight 
Summon  them  back  to  warm  themselves  and  live. 

The  year's  last  harvest  has  been  set  aside. 
Men  gather  its  last  ^learnings.     So  they  come 
To  gleam  behind  us  saving  shreds  of  pity, 
And  golden  seeds  of  sorrows  still  unsuffered. 

We  may  remember  them  when  autumn  drives 
The  leaves  before  him.     They  are  frailer  still, 
More  than  the  leaves,  innumerable,  wan, 
Faint  as  the  smoke  of  autumn  fires  that  mounts 
To  meet  the  haze,  and  dies  before  the  daylight. 

These  are  the  golden  days  of  memory, 
The  whole  world  makes  its  own  before  it  buries 
The  dying  year  in  winter's  drifted  marble ; 
Days  when  they  most  have  power  to  live  in  us. 

Endless  processions  passing  from  the  past, 
Souls  of  strong  sins  and  stronger  loves  and  sorrows, 
Men  whose  hands  made  us;  mothers  of  our  mothers, 
Seen  in  our  children's  lips  and  eyes  one  second. 

18 


REV  EN  ANTS  19 

This  is  their  season,  they  who  in  our  blood 
Clamor  each  hour;  who  knock  at  dead  of  night 
At  our  hard  hearts;  whose  dead  hands  slay  or  save 
When  we  remember  most,  and  most  we  need  them. 

Then  the  warm  world  for  winter's  storms  prepares; 
Till,  like  the  drifting  leaves,  at  last  they  vanish. 

Pcconic,  6-1—14 


ADVENTURERS 

ONCE  we  walked   the  windlass  round,  stamping  to 
the  chantey's  sound ;  sang  to  start  her. 
Once   we   threw   our   dice  with   death ;   shifting   ballast, 
trembling  breath,  strove  to  barter. 

Burning  mountains,  islands  far,  where  the  trade  wind's 

courses  are,  then  we  sighted : 
Cities  sacked   and   set  afire.     Lives  we  lost  for  love  or 

hire.     We  have  lighted 
Beacons  bright  in  boyhood's  eyes.     Treasons  shrewd  with 

shrewder  lies  we  requited. 

Continents  whose   nerves  were  night,   trail   by   trail   we 

dragged  to  light.     All  we  charted, 
Till  today  from  pole  to  pole  we  have  run  and  grasped 

our  goal,  restless  hearted. 

What  tomorrow  shall  we  do,  what  assail  and  what  pursue, 

where  adventure? 
All  your  life's  a  ledger  page.     And  your  earth  is  gray  with 

age.     Law's  indenture 
Makes  your  days  the  days  of  slaves.     And  your  fathers 

from  their  graves  their  sons  censure. 

When  we  force  your  last  frontier,  when  our  hearts  for 
getting  fear,  tame  and  cruel 
20 


ADVENTURERS  21 

Grow  as  your  sick  souls  have  grown:  how  shall  life  win 
back  its  own,  find  new  fuel? 

To  the  jungle  said  the  farm,  "  When  your  power  to  spoil 

and  harm,  all  is  ended ; 
How  shall  I  my  limits  know,  where  begin  and  cease  to 

grow."  Time  defended 
Silently  the  jungle  smiled,  like  a  savage  or  a  child,  wild 

and  splendid. 

This  was  so  ere  Rome  was  old.     Before  Babylon  grew 

cold,  men  were  asking 
"  Must  we  pay  this  price  of  peace?     Shall,  untried,  our 

valor  cease,  legion-tasking?  " 

Your  barbarians  begin,  hordes  without  you  and  within, 

to  beleaguer 
Every  city  you  have  built  out  of  greed  and  blood   and 

guilt.     Bodies  meager, 
Spirits   weak   as   women   fail.     Life   is   tireless.     Life   is 

male.     Life  is  eager. 

Clouds  of  gnats  and  airships  soar,  dive  to  death:  but  more 

and  more  life  arises. 
Through    the    ether    science-mined,    lens    and    rays    new 

marvels  find,  new  surmises. 


22  ADVENTURERS 

Life  lines  up  your  last  reserves.     Where  the  jungle  in 

your  nerves  life  is  wasting. 
Where  your  sons  degenerate  clots  of  greed  disintegrate, 

death  foretasting; 
Every  savage  in   the  slum  is  a  pledge  of  life  to  come, 

full,  unhasting. 

War   its  thunder   nearer   rolls,   soon   to  search   and   sift 

your  souls.     You  who  tame  her 
Starve  and  make  of  peace  a  whore,  where  your  millions 

men  adore,  stain  and  shame  her. 

War  is  worship  for  the  free.  Since  man  first  began  to 
be,  our  endeavor, 

Legionaries,  errant  knights,  pioneers,  life's  acolytes:  rest 
ing  never, 

Seeking  out  its  God  unknown,  till  the  last  man  dies  alone ; 
lives  forever. 

Los  Angeles,   10-20-12 


SAILORS 

O\  T  of  the  deep  the  waves  rise  up  to  praise  Thee. 
Day  after  day  the  tides  in  high  procession 
Singing  their  songs  of  praise,  make  earth  an  altar 
Under  Thy  boundless  temple  dome  of  sky. 
Year  after  year  their  multitudes  adored  Thee, 
Millions  of  lives  obscured  that  lived  to  die. 

Nations  of  men  innumerable  served  Thee ; 
Out  of  their  weakness  wrought  Thy  ships  and  sailors; 
Out  of  their  blindness  found  Thy  farthest  islands; 
Charted  Thy  coasts  and  foundered  in  Thy  storms. 
Millions  of  ships  they  wrecked  in  mist  and  midnight. 
Out  of  Thy  fogs  a  planet's  vision  forms. 

Now  we  have  seen  Thy  breakers  by  Thy  searchlights; 
Pricked  on  Thy  maps  Thy  poles  in  due  position ; 
Now  we  precisely  make  our  weekly  landfalls. 
Along  Thy  sea  lanes  steadily  there  go 
Thousands  of  ships  in  endless,  swift  procession ; 
Bearing  Thy  burdens,  Master,  to  and  fro. 

We  are  Thy  priests,  O  Lord.     The  rest  forgetful 
Doze  on  Thy  decks,  and  count  their  gains  and  losses. 
We  are  Thy  priests.     Thy  spirit  shares  our  watches 
Where  in  the  fog  Thy  bergs  are  loosed  to  slay: 
Where  in  the  night  Thy  rocks  reach  up  to  rend  us. 
We  are  Thy  priests  O  Lord,  by  night  and  day. 

23 


24  SAILORS 

We  are  Thy  priests.     We  lead  Thy  people  onward. 
Pluck  them  from  listless  cares  to  watch  Thy  wonders, 
Teach  them  to  hear  Thy  voice  in  calms  and  thunders. 
Wave  after  wave  we  lift  Thy  host  on  high. 
We  are  Thy  celebrants  of  stars  and  whirlwinds, 
Turned  to  Thy  altar  lights  to  see  Thy  sky. 

Pe conic,  6-3-14 


SOLDIERS 

O\^'K  we  fought  on  with  fear  and  night  with  broken 
flints  and  boughs  of  trees. 
We  forged  us  blades  and  shafts  of  light.     With  fire  we 

slew  our  enemies. 

We  led  ten  thousand  men  to  fight  where  once  we  marched 
by  twos  and  threes. 


Chieftains  and  kings  we  swept  away.     We  brought  our 

bleeding  captives  home, 
And  gold  and  women.     Yesterday  our  triumphs  crowned 

the  hills  of  Rome. 
Altars  and  arch  in  ruins  lay,  and  time  defiled  each  temple 

dome. 

Still  we  went  marching  on.     We  stood  the  sentinels  of 

progress  there 
On  Nubian  sands,  in  Dacian  wood.     When  Rome  brought 

home  her  last  despair 
To  meet  the  Hun's  red  brotherhood,  we  made  our  end 

an  iron  prayer. 

We  made  our  discipline  a  law  for  later  legions,  pioneered 
New  empires  that  the  Spaniards  saw,  guarded  his  gods. 

Westward  we  steered, 
Felt  English  canvas  slat  and  draw,  till  time's  new  world 

to  truth  appeared. 

25 


26  SOLDIERS 

We  made  New  England.     Born  to  be  her  Pilgrim  spirits, 

ironsides 
Stern  as  her  winters  and  her  sea,  we  wrestled  with  her 

storms  and   tides. 
We  took  her  forest,  tree  by  tree,  from  death  that  in  the 

darkness  hides. 

We  slew  her  savages.     We  went  across  the  mountains 

and  the  plains, 
Marched  on  and  made  a  continent  for  all  the  world:  from 

our  red  veins 
Baptized  your  states.     Our  strength  we  spent  to  found 

this  nation  that  remains. 

We  freed  the  slave.     Of  death  we  made  a  sacrament,  a 

brotherhood. 
Into  his  incense  black  and  frayed  the  battle  flags  reeled 

on  and  stood ; 
Till  our  last  dead  to  rest  were  laid  before  his  altar.      Hill 

and  wood 

Still   trenched   and  scarred,  where  spring  is  green,  bear 

witness  to  our  iron  rites. 
We  raised  a  temple  vast,  unseen.     And  there  our  brothers 

walk  at  night, 
And  see  the  shames  that  crawl  between  their  monuments. 

From  starry  heights 


SOLDIERS  27 

They  wait  to  watch  their  nation  wake  when  God's  red 

Sabbath  comes  again, 
When  one  by  one  His  soldiers  take  His  altar  steps  through 

iron  rain ; 
When   women's   hearts   their   martyrs   make   of   freemen 

fallen  not  in  vain. 

Your   editors,    with    liar's   souls    blaspheme    our    service. 

Blind  and  slow 
^  our  Congress  thins  our  muster  rolls.     Your  aliens  snarl. 

By  this  we  know- 
That  Death  shall  take  his  double  tolls  when  forth  to  God 

our  banners  go. 

Pf  conic,  6-4-14 


PRIESTS 

Wl.  \vaved  torches  in  the  night,  we  dealt  in  spells. 
We  traded  fear. 
We  raised  ghosts.     We  wrought  with  wizards,  making 

portents  black  appear. 

We  made  lies  and  murder  serve  us,  stealing  power  from 
far  and  near. 


Others   bowed    to    Bacchus   blindly.     We   their    drunken 

madness  led. 
Others  gave  their  babes  to  Moloch ;  for  our  good  they 

burned  and  bled. 
Others  virgins  to  Astarte  brought,  to  us,  who  never  wed. 

We  grew  great  by  hoarding  secrets,  shared  by  us  of  earth 
and  skies, 

Secrets  of  the  hoards  of  others,  secrets  wrung  from  rest 
less  eyes, 

Secret  shames,  sick  fears  of  mothers.  In  all  wickedness 
made  wise 

We  grew  rich ;  but  man  grew  strong.     The  wide  black 

spider  web  of  night 
Strand  by  strand  in  silence  burning ;  fire  by  fire,  he  fought 

to  light. 
So  we  made  us  gods  that  left   him   damned   forever  in 

God's  sight. 

28 


PRIESTS  29 

He  grew  greater.     He  grew  tender,  till  a  mother  and  a 

child 
Born  to  bless,  he  dreamed.     And  we  betrayed  his  hopes, 

and  love  that  smiled, 
Fearing  hell  that  flamed  forever;  failed  and  died  by  us 

defiled. 

We  set  shackles  on  men's  spirits.     We  weighed  down  their 

hearts  with  dread, 
Burned  stray  bodies  at  the  stake,  set  thumb  screws  round 

man's  fingers  red. 
And  with  crippled  fingers  groping,  man  went  marching  on 

ahead. 

We  forbade  his  mind  to  mount  where  we  had  taught  his 

soul  to  crawl. 
Man  that  breaks  his  idols  slowly,  past  each  crumbling 

temple  wall 
Looked  beyond  us  to  the  stars,  and  found  in  slime  new 

life  for  all. 

Whether  Christ  is  better  shrined  in   Rome  or  Moscow, 

now  no  more 
Rends  men's  lives.     And  men  today  a  God  of  larger  life 

adore. 
Life   that   batters  down   its   idols,   they   must   build   and 

battle  for. 


30  PRIESTS 

We  are  failing,  we  are  falling,  \ve  that  preach  a  god  of 

lies, 
To  the  women,  to  the  children,  to  the  blind.  In  darkness 

dies 
Our  dominion  of  the  shadows,  every  shame  that  light 

denies. 

Now  the  world  outgrowing  fear  no  more  can  worship 

yesterday. 
Now  it  needs  no  more  our  creeds,  nor  prays  as  children 

blindly  pray. 
Like  all  life  extinct  Thy  martyrs  are.     Lord,  we  shall 

be  as  they. 

Peconic,  8-21-13 


MODERNS 


A  PORTRAIT 

DR.    ALEXIS   CARREL 

THK  eyes  behind  the  glasses  look  at  you, 
They  probe  your   flesh.     They  pierce  your  spirit 

through. 

You  stand  before  a  Jesuit  in  white, 
A  new  high  priest  of  life's  last  order  —  Light. 

Since  out  of  darkness  came  the  will  to  be, 
The  soul  to  suffer  and  the  mind  to  see; 
Since  life's  long  ladder  leads  us  to  today; 
Since  ages  lapse  and  nations  pass  away; 
Since  from  its  ashes  life  renews  its  flame; 
Out  of  an  ape's  misshapen  brain  he  came. 

He  comes  today  to  make  the  crooked  straight, 
Out  of  a  wilderness  of  lust  and  hate. 
He  conies  to  heal  the  halt.     The  dumb  shall  speak. 
The  blind  shall  see  what  still  they  dumbly  seek. 

Man  has  all  power.     He  holds  the  beating  heart 
Torn  from  the  breast.     He  takes  the  flesh  apart 
To  save  the  soul  that  tortured  still  survives. 
He  works  his  miracles  on  modern  lives. 
And  out  of  pain,  disease,  despair,  decay; 
He  raises  life  and  levers  death  away. 

33 


34  A  PORTRAIT 

His  scapels  harrow  highways  hard  of  One 
Who  waits  till  his  forerunner's  task  is  done. 
His  brain  records,  his  lenses  life  dissect, 
Till  men  a  stronger  Saviour  still  expect. 

For  not  to  end  in  darkness  evermore, 

Men  rise  from  night  and  dreams  of  light  adore. 

Today  our  surgeons  triumph  over  pain. 

We  shall  see  stronger  surgeons  of  the  brain, 

Surgeons  of  doubt,  defeat ;  at  last  a  Goal 

Won  from  this  wilderness  that  wastes  the  soul. 

New  York,  1-1-13 


THE  TEST  TUBE 

HI  RK    is   chaos   swiftly   whirling    where    a    Bunsen 
burner's  flame 

Sets  a  million  atoms  swirling,  atoms  that  from  ether  came; 
Flame   from   sunlight    man-sublimed    that    I    might   give 
my  germ  a  name. 

Here  my  culture  lives  and  spreads,  and  growing  faster 

day  by  day, 
Drives  one  dread  of  all  man's  dreads  of  death  and  night 

and  cold  away, 
Till  an  antitoxin  new  once  more  rekindles  mortal  clay. 

Here  creation   in   this  glass  the  aeons  and  the  centuries 
In  due  season  bring  to  pass  perfectly.     And  such  as  these 
Fumes   that   swirl   around   each   planet   newly   born,   the 
Master  sees. 

Once  we  fought  with  shapes  of  fear  and  life  was  frozen 

in  the  night, 
Till  an  ape  that  seared  his  hand,  clutched  a  brand  and 

clung  to  light. 
Once  we  dreamed  that  love  alone,  evil's  essence  could  set 

right. 

Good  and  evil,  twin,  entwined,  in  this  glass  our  lenses 
show ; 

35 


36  THE  TEST  TUBE 

Seeds  of  death  by  man  refined  to  cure,  not  kill,  at  last 

\ve  know. 

All   processionals  of  atoms   through   the  ages  come   and 
go: 

Through   the  ether,   through  the  midnight,   through   the 

earth,  through  children  pale, 
Warped  and  wasted  in  our  slums  till  all  creation  seems  to 

fail: 
Till  their  prayers,  their  sighs  unheard,  avail  to  make  this 

glass  a  grail. 
Denver,  /0-/J-/J 


THE  NEW  STJR 

WI    hold  the  upper  places  fast.     On  many  a  mountain 
height 
Our  watch  towers  stand.     We  map  the  stars,  we  chart 

the  curves  of  light 

Like  men   who  saw  o'er  Bethlehem  a  new  star  in   the 
night. 


We  wander  through  the  infinite,  the  wilderness  of  space, 
To  worship  Truth  revealed  to  man,  a  spectrum  new  to 

trace, 
To  find  some  planet  fresh  prepared  to  be  Love's  dwelling 

place. 

This  world   is  old  and   full  of  sin  and  sickness,  sure  to 

die. 
It  serves  its  purpose  and   it  ends,  the  same  as  you  anil 

I, 
We  are  your  Prophets  who  translate  the  gospel  of  the 

sky. 

Here  on  our  conning  tower  of  time,  our  turret  of  today, 
Searchlight   and    gun,    artillery   of   truth,    we   serve   and 

sway, 
We  shell  the  midnight  with  men's  minds  till  legions  black 

give  way. 


37 


38  THE  NEW  STAR 

For  men  of  old  steered  by  the  stars  o'er  land  and  shore 
less  sea, 

And  coast  by  coast  their  earth  explored.  And  so  today 
do  we, 

Who  sound  the  eddies  of  the  skies  till  flesh  and  soul  sail 
free. 

When  coracles  to  galleys  grew  by  Sidon  and  by  Tyre; 
Our  fathers  pricked  their  parchment  charts,  they  nursed 

a  smothered  fire, 
They   lit   their  spirits  at   the   stars,   to   struggle,   starve, 

aspire. 

And  not  aloof  and  lone  we  are,  nor  far  divorced  as  they 
From  all  that  live  upon  the  land,  that  walk  the  human 

way, 
Who  struggle,  strive  and  stumble  on,  who  all  one  law 

obey. 

We  are  your  eyes  but  we  have  ears  for  human  joy  and 

pain. 

When  surgeons  like  creators  carve  from  chaos  life  again, 
When  some  new  poet  like  a  star  appears,  we  too  attain. 

We  watch  the  faces  of  our  wives  new  lit  while  we  dissect 
Both  light  and  night,  the  very  void,  and  life's  last  nerve 
detect. 


THE  NEW  STAR  39 

And  while  our  children  smile  \ve  probe  the  love  of  God's 
elect. 

We  measure  life,  but  more  we  live,  \ve  feel  the  rising 

tide, 
The  Brute  that  out  of  blackness  born,  that  scarred  and 

crucified, 
Sees  star  by  star  the  Grail  supreme  that  death  shall  fail 

to  hide. 

New  York,  12 


MKN  shou 
to  do: 


SCIENCE  AND  THE  EDITOR 

should  envy  me  you  say  for  all  I  know  and  try 


Test  tubes,  cultures,  truth  dissected.     Well  I  wish  that  I 

were  you 
With  your  fountain  pen  that  probes,  your  hyperdermics, 

truth  and  lies; 
Subtle  drugs  that  cure  or  kill  the  will,  the  mind,  that  you 

devise 
In  this  cosmic  laboratory  of  the  city  that  you  daily  rush 

and  crush  and  stumble  through. 

So  you've  heard  this  mongrel  yelping.     He  was  happy  for 

a  day. 
First  we  fed  his  puppy's  paunch.     Then  Otto  taught  him 

how  to  play. 

Vivisected,  racked  to  marrow,  matter  red  disintegrates. 
But  his  heart  inside  a  jar  beats,  and  time's  tenth  hour 

awaits 
Ticking  off  the  vital  seconds  until  fools  forget  their  folly, 

glimpse  our  goal  that's  stars  away. 

Better  dogs  like  life  itself  run  like  brooks,  like  sunbeams 
breed. 

Here  this  heart  upon  the  shelf  helps  all  manhood  to  suc 
ceed. 

Anti-vivisection  slush  still  you  publish  when  it  pays. 

40 


SCIENCE  AND  THE  EDITOR  41 

Fools  will  gush  ami  weakness  whimpers.  Half  your  tribe 
the  truth  dismays. 

Human  mongrels  in  perdition,  souls  by  Wall  Street  vivi 
sected,  out  of  blindness  man  must  lead. 

Redlight  hearts  in  dingy  jars,  fingers  grafted  from  a  child 

To  the  race  that  clutches  stars,  by  your  cotton  mills  de 
filed ; 

All  the  raw  tormented  truth  that  you  trade  in;  spirits 
bowed; 

All  the  dreams  profaned  of  youth  your  six  inch  headlines 
shriek  aloud ; 

Fumes  of  heaven  and  hell  together  are  in  time's  long 
laboratory,  sublimated,  reconciled. 

Test  tubes,  cultures,  here  are  clean,  deadly  microbes  though 

we  brew, 

Yours  are  clouded  and  obscene.  Antiseptics  science  knew 
Only  yesterday,  remember.  Vice  you've  yet  to  segregate. 
Yes,  and  Greed:  but  little  children  from  the  tenements  of 

hate, 
Can't  we  take  from  Satan's  test  tubes,  rear  in  cultures 

clear  as  crystal,  somehow,  sometime,  I  and  you? 

Here's  the  section  of  an  eye,  the  rest  I  grafted  —  cataract 
Cured  completely.     Millions  die  to  leave  one  tiny  lens  in 
tact. 


42  SCIENCE  AND  THE  EDITOR 

Graft  the  truth,  man,  fix  and  free  it,  clean  and  clear  for 

minds  that  blink, 
Though  you  die  the  race  shall  see  it,  see  with  thoughts 

you  dared  to  think. 
Maybe  in  his  endless  purpose,  God  shall  save  you  from 

extinction,  graft  the  slice  of  soul  you  lacked. 

New  York,  12-12-12 


BURNT  SACRIFICE 

Gi  H)  poured  a  beaker  of  His  wrath  today 
Into  this  casting  pit,  on  human  clay 
Lost  in  the  flood  of  molten  steel  that  leapt 
Out  of  the  crucible.     Two  women  wept, 
Their  children  wailed.     And  still  these  iron  pulses  beat 
Where  hell's  blast  furnaces  a  nation's  life  blood  heat. 

Two  men  were  blotted  out.     Their  funeral 
No  mourners  throng.     No  mother  may  recall 
How  her  son  lay  in  death  and  smiled  at  her, 
Or  tend  his  grave.     Yet  were  they  happier 
Than  millions  crushed  to  slime  by  man's  obscene  machine, 
Their  lives  were  gray  with  grime.     The  death  they  died 
was  clean. 

For  these  lost  soldiers  on  life's  firing  line 

We  have  no  tears;  a  cautery  divine 

Seared  them  away  to  cleanse  our  discontent. 

Some  mighty  bridge  may  be  their  monument. 

In  death  they  live.     But  we,  slavish  and  tyrannous, 

How  shall  our  souls  go  free?     How  shall  it  profit  us? 

Nnv  York,  IO-IJ—I2 


43 


ONC: 


THE  BRIDGE  BUILDER 


NC'K   the  powers  that  planned   the  oceans   left   an 

island  near  the  shore 
In  the  angle  vast,  reentrant,  reaching  down  from  Labra 
dor, 
At  the  West's  great  Watergate.     And   there  Manhattan 

came  to  be, 
In  the  purpose  plotting  surely  life  for  all  on  land  and  sea. 


Life  was  shipped  from  overseas,  and  there  remained.     Two 

cities  there 
Reaching  out  struck  hands  together,  held  them  clasped. 

They  sent  me  where 

I  went  sinking  caissons  slowly,  eighty  feet  below  the  day, 
Through   the  quicksand   driving  wedges,   till  my   towers 

were  under  way. 

Once  they  built  a  tower  at  Babel.     Babels  twain  I  rose 

between, 
Tuned  my  cables,  tightened  trusses,  till  my  symphony  was 

seen, 
Strong,   enduring,    flawless,    finished.     Where   the   cities' 

noise  grows  still 
In  midstream,  midair,  I  made  it,  all  its  soul  of  steel  athrill. 

Till  the  storms  came  up  to  shake  it.     Firm  it  stood.     Each 
girder  twanged 

44 


THE  BRIDGE  BUILDER  45 

In  the  wind's  wild  orchestration.     Where  my  hammers 

beat  and  clanged 

Every  rivet  held.     And  I  and  all  my  iron  fighting  men 
Knew  that  mind  could  bind  the  sky,  knew  that  man  was 

master  then. 

Flawless  where  it  stood  I  left  it.     Finished?     No.     The 

stage  was  there. 

Then  began  a  greater  building  of  that  drama  in  the  air, 
Millions  stage  each  night  and  morning,  when  the  wheels 

began  to  roll. 
In   tomorrow's  vast  cathedral,  just  one  pathway  of  the 

soul; 


Just  one  aisle,  I  left  to  others.     Men  shall  mount  when  I 

am  dead. 
Life's  procession  past  my  piers  shall  march,  and  higher 

overhead 
See  the  towers  of  mightier  builders.     Yet  this  thing  I  left 

to  be 
Strong,  essential,  fit  for  service  as  the  mountains  and  the 

sea. 

Far,  far  inland  my  approaches  slowly  rise  as  millions  rise. 
Up  from  bed  rock,  climbing  slowly,  come  our  towers  to 
scale  the  skies. 


46  THE  BRIDGE  BUILDER 

Like  two  shackled  seraphs  standing  wing  to  \ving  they 

struggle  still, 
Bridging  man's  last  baffled  ages,  till  tomorrow  shall  work 

our  will. 

\t-ii    York,  6-y-i  / 


CONGRESS  CONVENES 

TWO  clock  hands  meet.     A  chaplain  blind  invokes 
A  god  unknown  men  worship  here  with  lies. 
The  business  of  the  session  has  begun. 
A  man  from  Massachusetts  has  the  floor: 
From  Massachusetts:  —  once  she  stood  for  freedom. 

Her  manufacturers  and  union  leaders 
Deal  with  Rhode  Island.     Kansas  intervenes, 
Insurgent,  shrewd.     Here  farm  must  fight  with  mill, 
Mine  with  plantation,  poverty  with  riches, 
Millions4  with  human  hearts  and  hopes  that  perish. 

Here  is  no  senate  stately,  of  free  states. 
We  have  made  here  a  clearing  house  of  hatreds, 
Mean  jealousies  and  petty  greeds  and  fears, 
Of  special  interests,  monstrous  and  minute, 
As  these  hard  human  lips  and  eyes  of  liars. 

These  are  our  masks,  our  clowns,  our  Punchinellos: 
Puppets  we  play  with  blindly ;  and  the  gods 
Look  down  and  laugh  at  us  who  lavish  here 
Our  souls  on  shams.     For  underneath  it  all 
We  live  and  love  and  see  the  stars  at  night. 

Even  these  husks  contain  the  hearts  of  heroes. 
These  monstrous  paunches  human  entrails  hide; 
Something  that  sleeps  and  may  be  waked.     And  walking 


48  CONGRESS  CONFENES 

Like  men  asleep  they  offer  gifts  to  Him 

Who  out  of  endless  patience  shapes  His  planets. 

For  slowly  out  of  gluttony  and  lust, 
Blindness  and  greed,  the  sentient  soul  of  man 
Wakens  to  wrongs  and  wider  brotherhood, 
As  the  first  cave  man  found  a  world  outside 
His  stagnant  cave;  and  starward  strode  forever. 

Peconic,  5-29-14 


T 


COMMENCEMENT 

HEY  arc  coming  from  the  chapel  under  trees  where 

Lowell  walked : 
Gownsmen  all  in  slow  procession.     Here  where  Wendell 

Phillips  talked, 
Winthrop,    Adams,    Hancock,    Stnndish,   Sumner,    Evarts 

live  again 

In  the  names  and  in  the  faces  of  these  boys  we  turn  to 
men. 


Alma  Mater,  first  and  oldest,  in  a  world  no  longer  new, 

Sternest  in  thy  creed  and  coldest,  striving,  grasping,  false 
and  true: 

All  the  world  demands  an  answer,  law ;  a  gospel  here  to 
day: 

In  thy  eyes  would  see  salvation.  But  thy  gaze  is  turned 
away. 

All  the  world  is  working,  striving.  Suffering  its  children 
cry. 

Thou  must  search  thy  heart,  assure  us,  lest  the  soul  in  us 
should  die. 

All  these  faces,  firm  and  wistful,  feet  that  fall  in  cadenced 
beat, 

Bring  thee  nearer  to  thy  moment  of  new  triumph  or  de 
feat. 


40 


5o  COMMENCEMENT 

At  thy  word  our  sires  for  freedom  falling,  fifty  years  ago, 
Drifting  in  the  wind  of  battle,  where  men's  lives  were  lost 

like  snow, 
Died.     Today  our  war  is  greater;  ghastlier  loss  its  lords 

devise. 
Harder  things  than  lead  and  steel  we  feel  who  reel  and 

how  to  lies. 

Hate  and  horror  long  besiege  us.     Doubt  and  error  crept 

within, 
Spied  within  these  halls  where  traitors  hide;  the  restless 

hosts  of  sin 
Sap   our   walls.     Aloof    no    longer   we   may   bide.     Our 

citadel 
Only  can  be  won  by  soldiers,  rallying  where  heaven  and 

hell 

Wrestle  through  the  world.     We  send  them,  these,  our 

boys,  our  last,  our  best; 

Young,  unfitted,  blind,  aspiring,  fearless,  to  a  nation's  test. 
War  is  wreckage,  rout  and  ruin.     Drifting  shreds  of  souls 

that  fall 
Stumbling  forth  from  shame  to  triumph,  rallying  shall  hear 

thee  call. 

Truth  is  militant  and  mighty.     We  her  last  reserves  shall 
rise. 


COMMENCEMENT  51 

Truth  is  fearless.  We  shall  find  her  in  these  clear,  un- 
conquered  eyes. 

Truth  is  ours  who  free  our  spirits  though  our  flesh  in  weak 
ness  dies. 

We  shall  march  behind  their  shoulders,  seeing  in  their  eyes 
that  see 

After  struggle  greater  struggle,  new  Americas  to  be, 

Maimed  and  bleeding:  till  thy  word  is  heard  forever  clear 
and  free. 

New  York,  6-8-14 


THE  POLICE  MAGISTRATE 

THOU  who  the  hearts  of  men  dost  weigh,  the  surgeon 
of  our  souls  today, 
Whose  headlines  probe  our  rottenness:     Thou  that  has  set 

me  here  on  high 
To  scan  the  symptoms  of  our  sins,  to  diagnose  each  choking 

cry 
Of  truth  and  terror,  horror,  shame,  and  sin  that  lives  alone 

to  die; 
Making  thy  law  a  medicine  for  spirits  sick,  too  tired  to 

play  ; 


Thou  that  dost  make  the  mighty  small,  infected  by  the  city's 

sins  ; 
Making  thy  minor  souls  the  same,  the  slaves  of  fear,  and 

greed  and  lust; 
Making  red  murders  merciful,  that  flowers  might  blossom 

from  the  dust ; 
Making  thy  hero's  hearts  from  hell,  that  men  that  die 

might  learn  to  trust 
This  people's  tortured  soul  that  still  from  wickedness  to 

worship  wins. 

Draw  near  to  us  and  bear  with  us,  in  this,  thy  nation's 

hour  of  trial ; 
For  Justice  is  made  merchandise,  and  judges  bought  and 

sold  like  whores. 

52 


THE  POLICE  MAGISTRATE  53 

They  walk  the  streets  with  restless  eyes.     They  enter  in 

by  secret  doors. 
They  live  by  power  that  trades  in  lies,  and  light  and  liberty 

deplores, 
And  all  the  lovely  things  of  life  that  in  the  shadows  strive 

to  smile. 


Their  rottenness  has  left  me  here  in  thy  law's  ante-room; 

not  there 
Where  in  thy  high  courts,  eyes  benign  and  base,  thine  equal 

justice  wrest. 
Lord,  I  was  jealous  for  Thy  truth.     I  dreamed  that   I 

might  serve  Thee  best 
In  dignity,  and  power  and  ease,  where  slowly  men  Thy 

pleadings  test; 
\Vlicre  all  Thy  last  appeals  are  heard  in  larger  light  and 

ampler  air. 

There  in  thy  law's  last  balance  room  at  Washington,  the 

scales  are  set 
To  weigh  each  thousandth  part  of  truth;  and  there  nine 

men  whose  souls  are  thine, 
Make   laboratory  tests  of  law,  assay  success  and   power 

malign ; 
Hand    thy  decisions  down   to  earth.     No  longer,    Lord, 

that  goal  is  mine. 


54  THE  POLICE  MAGISTRATE 

Here  in  Thy  clinic  drear,  of  crime,  I  learn  to  labor  and 
forget. 

Here  at  first  hand   I   deal   with   life.     This  power  they 

missed  I  wield  alone. 
Here  by  the  altar  of  Thy  law,  old  sins,  old  shames,  old 

treasons  stand: 
Mute   supplicants,   dumb   hopes,   sad   eyes   that   see   new 

light,  a  nobler  land. 
For  men  still  make  tomorrow  here.     I  hold  its  substance 

in  my  hand 
Until  at  last  they  cast  me  out,  old  age  or  evil,  both  Thine 

own. 

Peconic,  6—2-14 


THE  PUBLIC  LIBRARY 

THIS   is  our  bank  of   learning  modern   and   marble 
floored. 

And  here  I  stand  like  a  teller,  and  gods  men  once  adored, 
Old  rituals  of  idols,  go  blindly  through  my  hands 
To  a  world  that  faith  forgetting,  today  misunderstands, 
And  fails  to  find  in  its  making  a  larger  law's  commands. 


Here  we  have  twenty  talents  stored  and  a  thousand  score. 

And  to  him  that  hath  shall  be  given.  We  lend  him  more 
and  more. 

And  from  him  that  lacks  shall  be  taken.  And  the  years 
shall  strip  away 

From  the  cheap  and  the  tawdry  faces  the  youth  of  yester 
day, 

Readers  of  tales  as  vital  as  a  child  tells  in  his  play. 

And  the  cheap  and  the  childish  credos,  the  old  ancestral 
lies, 

We  slowly  learn  to  sublimate.  And  error's  dark  dis 
guise, 

And  the  rotting  husks  and  wrappings  of  truth  that  the 
simple  see, 

We  strip  from  her  fair  white  body.  We  toil  to  set  her 
free. 

For  men  made  of  truth  a  mummy  once  and  cheated  you 
and  me. 

- 


56  THE  PUBLIC  LIBRARY 

This  is  our  city's  clinic  for  its  deaf  and  dumb  and  blind. 
This  is  our  laboratory  where  new  germs  of  thought  we 

find. 
And  one  man's  mind  is  a  microscope.     One  strong  soul 

soars  afar, 
And  hales  us  healing  sure  and  hope,  from  the  orbit  of  a 

star, 
One  larger  letter  of  the  law,  whose  servants  all  we  are. 

We  all  are  the  law's  small  servants;  atoms  of  life  today, 
Like  the  flowers  that  fade  upon  my  desk,  and  that  child 

that  turns  away 

Stunted,  pale,  consumptive,  with  her  heaven  in  her  eye, 
Hugging  her  book  of   fairy  tales.     And   she  loves  each 

golden  lie. 
But  the  world  outgrows  its  fairy  tales.     And  the  child 

must  grow  or  die. 

Day  after  day  they  come  and  go,  the  crude,  the  cheap,  the 

young, 
With  their  little  pitiful  poets,  and  their  songs  long  since 

outsung. 
And  the  God  of  all  light  and  glory,  who  caused  His  stars 

to  be, 
Does  He  read  each  childish  story  that  they  write  for  you 

and  me? 

This  is  His  laboratory,  where  He  toils  to  set  men  free. 
Pcconic,  6-22-14 


WOMEN 


HELEN 

T7LOWERS— -  I  cannot  bear  them  for  they  fade. 
-F    Their  fragrance  is  of  death  —  their  fading  petals 
Are  clods  of  earth  time  flings  on  beauty's  coffin. 
For  in  the  full  unfolding  of  the  rose, 
There  comes  a  time  when  the  least  breath  of  air, 
The  echo  of  a  word,  may  be  her  end 
And  I  am  near  it.     All  I  have  today 
Tomorrow  is  the  wind's, —  Be  merciful. 

I  have  been  beautiful  and  known  no  mercy. 
I  have  been  happy,  if  this  happiness 
Be  blooming  in  the  sunlight  like  a  rose, 
Sufficient  in  itself.     But  he  who  gave 
Dew  to  His  roses,  gave  to  souls  like  mine 
A  martyrdom  of  mirrors,  and  of  tears. 

Here  where  I  watched  my  woman's  blossoming, 
Here  where  I  planned  my  triumphs  and  fulfilled  them, 
Time  turns  his  first  least  thread  of  that  torment.     I 
Am  made  my  own  soul's  executioner. 

My  mirror  is  my  rack  —  and  I  shall  see 
When  the  scars  show,  the  springtime  and  the  dawn ; 
And  how  I  wasted  them.     And  I  shall  call 
Out  of  my  agony,  to  lovers  dead  - 
And  to  the  living  this  one  word.     "  Remember"! 

59 


60  HELEN 

And  some  of  them  shall  hear  me.     Some  of  them 
Shall  see  me  in  their  dreams,  and  make  of  me 
An  image  and  a  song  of  suffering, 
Their  agony  and  mine,  too  true  to  die; 
Poignant  and  timeless  as  the  spring  herself ;  — 
Where  men  shall  see  me  walking  and  shall  worship 
What  I  once  was  in  other  eyes  —  forever. 

Seattle,  12-5-13 


MANNEQUINS 

PALK   slaves  that  swell   the   triumph  of  your   Pagan 
emperor  Poiret, 
Weak  captives  of  your  caliph,  Worth,  around  your  Roman 

ring  we  go. 
When  Satan's  big  department  store  has  staged  its  harness 

women's  show. 
When    Kaster    brings    its    blossoms    forth.     Outside    the 

world  is  making  May, 
And  bending  to  the  baby  buds,  pale  sunbeams  and  frail 

breezes  play. 

God  gave  me  brains  to  see  myself  as  others  see. 

He  gave  me  curves  that  catch  the  eye,  a  face  that  lures 

and  hair  that  flames, 
A  heart  that  trembles  through  the  streets,  that  shivers  at 

their  sudden  shames. 
He  made  twenty  and  unloved,  in  Satan's  dress  parade  to 

be 
Forever  hungry  and  alone.     What  hope  on  earth  is  there 

for  me? 

For  prostitutes  are  on  their  own.     But  we  who  walk  your 

tread  mill  here 
Are  made  your  slaves  at  second  hand,  the  sport  of  every 

eye  that  rolls, 
Sleek  odalisques  of  lust  that  calls  to  stronger  lust  to  take 

his  tolls: 

61 


62  MANNEQUINS 

Smeared  mirrors  of  your  evil  souls  that  come  and  stare 

and  disappear: 
Until  the  best  of  us  becomes  a  creeping  pest  of  greed  and 

fear. 

Here  in  our  last  sad  circle  of  your  new  inferno,  Dante's 
brain, 

That  wrote  in  gall  and  venom,  failed  to  guess  our  griev 
ance  and  despair: 

These  robes  of  princess-prostitutes,  that  painted  flesh  is 
proud  to  wear, 

That  Paris  and  its  panders  sell.  You  whisper,  smile  and 
sneer.  Again 

You  go  your  way,  the  weight  you  swell  of  all  life's  pov 
erty  and  pain. 

You  leave  us  for  your  meaner  ends,  who  wear  our  livery 

of  shame 
Around  your  Roman  ring  outside,  where  you  are  slaves  no 

less  than  we. 
To  us  through  sunless  windows  floats  one  breath  of  April 

and  the  sea, 
Of  "woods  where  pine  trees  fringe  the  sky.     You  make  life 

cruel,  vile  and  tame. 
Till  God  and  man  and  devil  die;  where  woman  most  must 

bear  the  blame. 

Jlong-kong,  1—21—14 


THE  HANDMAID 

I  TRY  to  say  as  Mary  said, 
"  Behold  the  handmaid  of  the  Lord," 
A  smile  upon  her  lips,  and  dread 
Within  her  heart, —  a  sword. 

Today  he  walked,  he  came  to  me, 
Up  to  life's  altar  bore  his  heart. 
I  caught  him  up  —  too  close  to  see, 
Yet  seemed  to  stand  apart. 

Tonight  he  waked,  I  held  him  tight, 
And  watched  as  I  went  to  and  fro 
The  long  processions,  through  the  night, 
Of  mothers  come  and  go. 

Up  to  life's  altar  and  away, 
Each  bore  her  gift,  and  hushed  his  cries 
With  tired  Te  Deums.     So  today 
God  hears  our  lullabies. 

Peconic,  9-30-13 


63 


LA  GIT  AN  A 

NONE  of   the  girls  of   Ronda   have   feet  as  fine  as 
mine, 
That  glimmer  and  glance  through  the  whirl  of  the  dance 

as  fireflies  blaze  and  shine, 

Seen  in  some  shadowy  rambla  outside  a  gay  cafe. 
None  of  the  girls  in  Ronda  can  dance  down  death,  my 
way. 

Carmen  and  fat  Conchita  can  sell  themselves  for  shoes, 
Black  as  their  souls  with  the  heels  of  red,  such  as  the 

Cubans  use. 
They  can  sell  themselves  for  their  stockings,  their  spider 

webs  of  silk, 
And  their  feet  like  their  brows  are  brazen,  but  mine  are 

white  as  milk. 

For  mine  was  a  Northern  mother  my  gipsy  father  found 
In  a  brothel  in  Biscaya.     And  love  in  drink  he  drowned. 
So  I  grew  up  in  the  gutter,  slinking  and  wild  to  be 
Alone,  alive,  in  the  open,  sunlit,  and  flushed  and  free, 
Naked   in   running  rivers.     So  I  must  dance  today 
Where  the  eyes  of  the  men  are  upon  my  face  and  flesh 
like  beasts  of  prey. 

And  the  tongues  of  the  tawdry  women  they  tear  my  life 
apart 

64 


LA  GIT  AN  A  65 

And  they  smear  my  name  with  their  women's  shame  as 

their  teeth  would  tear  my  heart, 
AM  they'd  rip  the  flesh  away  from  my  face  and  the  bodice 

from  my  breasts. 
And  the  wave  of  life  is  around  me.     I  am  lifted  on  its 

crests. 
I  am  lifted  high  on  its  surges;  and  the  light  it  lends  my 

eyes 
Is  the  strength  of  noon  and  sunrise  and  the  splendor  of 

the  skies. 


I  am  caged  in  their  snarling  city,  but  between  its  shadowy 
bars 

I  see  the  loom  of  tomorrow  and  the  altar  lights  of  stars. 

Savage,  violent,  virgin;  like  a  trainer  in  their  cage, 

They  snarl  at  my  looks  like  lashes,  these  women  marred 
with  age, 

These  men  that  my  mind  has  mastered;  and  I  rule  their 
restless  lives 

With  my  feet  that  flicker  through  shadows  like  the  bicker 
ing  light  of  knives. 

I   dance  and   they  bow  before  me.     Barefoot   I   turn,    I 

tread 
On  the  throbbing  hearts  of  the  living  and  the  ashes  of 

the  dead. 


66  LA  GIT4NA 

I  dance  till  I  stop,  where  he  stands  apart ;  till  I  hold  his 

love  and  hate: 
Master  and  man  and  the  bravest  heart,  sultan  and  slave 

and  mate. 
Paris,  5-16-13 


ANNUNCIATION 

ACROSS  the  air  shaft  is  a  window  high. 
Across  the  sill  the  shadows  slowly  creep. 
Lilting  a  little  childish  lullaby, 
A  little  maiden  lulls  a  doll  to  sleep. 

A  little  childish  form  that  comes  and  goes, 
That  hends  above  its  baby,  nurses  there 
The  warmth  of  life  that  opens  wide  the  rose, 
That  wraps  its  buds  against  the  April  air. 

Behind  her  walk  dead  women  wondering 

At  the  pure  rapture  in  the  childish  eyes, 

As  bright  and  glad  as  the  first  sight  of  spring, 

The  first  blue  rift  in  winter's  leaden  skies. 

Madonnas,  saints  and  sinners,  beggars,  queens; 
All  the  pale  past,  by  pain  and  passion  torn ; 
Lean  close,  as  closer  to  her  child  she  leans, 
Bearing  within  her  heart  her  babe  unborn. 

8J&.  Aw  a  Maru,   12-18—13 


67 


A  WOMAN 

WHY  she  married  him  I  don't  know.     How  she  sticks 
to  him  I  can't  tell. 
Second  by  second  and  inch  by  inch  she  goes  on  lifting 

him  out  of  hell. 
Smiles  when  you  see  her.     Her  lips  grow  tense  like  a 

tired  runner  that  true  to  form 

Moves   without    haste    through   the   swirls   of   dust    that 
follow  the  feet  of  the  first  of  the  storm. 

Once  she  was  prettier  than  the  rose.     Just  so  simple  and 

soft  and  sweet: 
Laughed  like  a  brook  that  sings  in  the  spring.     Now  she 

has  toiled  past  her  first  defeat. 
Time  has  taken  and  hardened  her  heart  to  the  heart  of 

a  woman  that  dares,  that  bears, 
All  things  still  for  the  love  she  lost.     Now  she  has  done 

with  old  visions  and  prayers. 

Time   has  trained   her  to  live  and   to   last,   making  her 

patient  and  sure  and  still, 
Thoroughbred,  lean  and  fine:  each  line  is  a  line  of  strength. 

She  is  all  one  will 
Waking  and  working  and  holding  fast  his  life,  that  shivers 

and  shrinks  and  falls, 
Blundering  blindly  from  door  to  door  in  the  city's  maze 

with  its  millions  of  walls. 
68 


A  WOMAN  69 

Now  she  nods  where  she  wasted  words  as  he  wastes  his 

silver  and  drains  away 
His   soul's  solution    in   glasses   tall,    where   he   clings   to 

each  clink.     Now  day  by  day 
Her  first  caresses  she  wastes  no  more  on  the  child  of  her 

fears  where  she  dreads  to  see 
What  in  his  father  she  worshipped  once,  and  she  never 

looks  backward  or  listens  to  me. 

Resolute,  silent,  day  after  day  she  lifts  him  up  as  he  sags 

I  and  shrinks. 

Fighting  for  breath  she  goes  winning  her  way.     Now  no 

longer  of  shame  she  thinks, 
Now  no  more  of  pleasure  or  pain,  than  girlish  ribbons  and 

dresses  outgrown. 

She  is  a  woman,  one  heart  and  brain  that  God  first  gave 
us  to  mother  its  own. 


Dick  isn't  vicious  or  wicked  or  wild;  simply  weak  and 

worthless  as  waste, 
For  wiping  life's  engines.     He  keeps  her  clean  and  keen 

and  shining  in  breathless  haste: 
Just  her  big  baby  to  wash  and  to  kiss  when  his  face  and  his 

hands  are  smeared  with  the  street. 
God   Almighty  has  made  her   for  this,   while  her  heart 

which  is  His  to  the  limit  shall  beat. 


70  A  WOMAN 

She  was  my  dream.     She  has  grown  beyond  dreams  and 

Dick,  and  herself,  and  me, 
She  wouldn't  drop  if  they  lifted  the  load.     Couldn't  be 

wasted.     People  see 
Day  after  day  in  her  lips  and  her  eyes  one  of  life's  leaders 

and  conquerors. 
Something  that  toils  through  tides  and  skies  to  carry  life 

on  to  tomorrow  is  hers. 

New  York,  6-23-14 


BEDTIME 

HE  was  not  willing  quite  to  go, 
And  yet  he  came  and  clung  to  me. 
His  drowsy  eyes  could  barely  see: 
Up  the  long  stairs  he  stumbled  so. 

And  there  our  pilgrimage  we  made, 
And  climbing  high  to  heaven,  once  more 
I  watched  his  wistful  lips  adore 
The  God  that  makes  the  stars  afraid. 

I  stood  beside  him  and  I  sang 
As  the  young  planets,  choiring,  when 
They  first  conceived  the  souls  of  men, 
Through  all  the  aisles  of  heaven  rang. 

He  heard   me.     In   his  sleep   he  smiled : 
And  a  new  moonbeam  in  the  night 
Crept  from  the  clouds,  a  prayer  in  white ; 
Kissed  as  I   kissed,  my  little  child. 

Portland,  Oregon,  12—3-13. 


THE  OLD  MOTHER 

FROM  my  body,  heart  and  brain 
He  \vas  born  to  give  me  pain. 
In  his  making  I  was  made, 
In  his  sins  my  soul  is  weighed. 

I  lost  sleep  that  he  might  sleep, 
Dared  not  weep  lest  he  should  weep. 
Long  I  watched  him  through  the  night. 
One  small  will  I  called  to  light : 

All  a  lifetime  fighting  in 
One  small  baby's  fevered  skin. 
Death  I  wrestled  with  and  threw: 
Watched  him  wake.     So  dear  he  grew. 

He  has  work  to  justify 
Now,  and  one  as  near  as  I ; 
Work  too  easy,  wife  too  slight: 
Once  more  watching  all  the  night, 

I  grow  slowly  sure  and  wise. 
So  he  missed  his  father's  eyes. 
Still  his  father's  spirit  lives 
Somewhere  in  him.     Life  forgives, 

All  when  he  comes  back  to  me 
Tired  and  sad  and  glad  to  be 
72 


THE  OLD  MOTHER  73 

Just  a  little  child  once  more, 
Near  me  on  the  nursery  floor. 

Then  my  hand  upon  his  brow 
Holds  his  heart.     And  I  know  now 
Ho\v  to  suffer  for  his  sake 
Till  his  soul   in  strength  shall  wake. 

Pe conic,  8-9-14 


HER  BIRTHDAY 

IGHTEEN  already?     Still  it  seems 
This  world  of  wickedness  is  good. 
Still  she  sees  sunrise  in  her  dreams; 
The  mysteries  of  maidenhood 
Lie  like  light  shadows  on  her  brow ; 
Her  lips  are  like  red  rosebuds  now. 

Soon  they  shall  open  like  her  heart. 
I   watch  her,  wistful,  wondering. 
When  time's  last  petals  fall  apart 
Shall  she  still  singing  smile  at  spring? 
She  smiles  at  me;  and  shall  we  fear 
September,  dear,  when  spring  is  here? 

Her  eyes  have  looked  on  lovely  things 

So  long,  their  light  is  loveliness. 

Her  thoughts  are  white;  their  tender  wings 

Like  flitting  butterflies  caress 

All  souls  that  seared  by  sin  and  pain 

Still  on  the  side  of  light  remain. 

Her  voice  is  beauty,  born   to  be 
The  music  clear  of  love  that  thrills 
Through  her  young  pulses.     So  is  she 
Sister  of  streams  and  stars  and  hills. 
She  is  one  word  that  God  lias  made 
To  meet  tomorrow  unafraid. 
74 


HER  BIRTHDAY  75 

While  the  warm  fragrance  of  her  soul 
Blends  with  the  air  I  breathe,  I  know 
She  is  one  part  of  one  great  whole, 
That  sends  her  sisters  like  the  snow 
To  make  this  world  one  moment  white; 
But  some  like  starlight  in  the  night. 

Pe conic,  7-3-14 


EVE 

I   SAW  our  surgeon  and  I  know. 
There  was  white  iris  in  his  vase. 
Today  I  have  begun  to  grow. 
I  saw  my  mission  in  his  face. 

For  I  was  wilful  and  perverse, 

A  girl  as  giddy  as  the  rest. 

And  soon  life's  hunger  I  shall  nurse, 

And  feel  his  ringers  on  my  breast. 

I  wondered  as  I  walked  the  streets, 
Watching  where  other  women  stood, 
In  whom  this  double  pulsing  beats, 
The  holy  word  of  Motherhood, 

That  stirred  in  me.     And  one  I  saw; 
Her  face  was  strange  and  grave  and  sweet; 
A  living  letter  of  God's  law. 
She  was  my  sister  in  the  street. 

I  met  my  mirror.     Suddenly, 

I  saw  another  standing  there  — 

Older  than  I.     And  I  could  see 

Her  brow  was  drawn  with  pain  and  care. 

Her  lips  were  lovely,  and  her  eyes, 
Mirrored  all  wisdom  and  delight. 
76 


EVE  77 

Her  lips  were  sweet  as  lullabies. 
Her  face  was  wonderful  and  white. 

Her  arms  were  strong  to  hold  me  fast, 
While  tears  between  my  eyelids  stole. 
She  kissed  me.     And  I  know  at  last 
Today  my  body  bears  a  soul. 

Pcconic,  5-30-74 


ARTS 


THE  LEADER 

FUR   more   than   four  score  bowmen,   to   wing  the 
shafts  of  sound 
My    craft    has    gathered    round    me.     My    violins    are 

drowned 
By  the  sound  of  drums  and  brasses  like  an  army's  mightier 

guns. 
And   now   to   the   highest   circles  of   the   crowded    house 

there   runs 
My  summons.     I  seize,  I  sway  them,  I  lift  them  high,  I 

hold 
Two  seconds;  sound  and  silence.     And  each  is  made  of 

gold. 


And  the  beasts  that  lurk  in  blackness,  and  the  powers 
of  night  draw  back. 

I  was  your  spirit's  leader.     But  little  might  I  lack 

Of  the  God  that  fills  my  fingers,  the  truth  that  I  trans 
late. 

I  was  a  force  for  your  breathlessness,  and  mastership  of 
fate. 


I    have  drilled   the   Devil's  dance  of  death   through   the 

halls  of  huge  hotels. 
I  have  led  the  iron  drums  of  war  where  the  roar  of  battle 

swells. 

I  was  a  minnie-singer  and  music's  man  at  arms, 

81 


82  THE  LEADER 

Selling  myself   for  a  season   to  wealth   that  wastes  and 

harms. 

So  have  I  gathered  my  bowmen,  captains  of  five  and  ten, 
Haggled  and  cringed  and  hoarded  to  lift  my  head  again. 

I    was  the  mind   that  made  them.     I   am  the  will   that 

calls, 
Like   a   keyboard   loud    I   played   them.     They   trembled, 

hearts  and  walls 
Till   she   came,   my   white   soprano,    and   music's   mouth 

indeed. 
And   her  grace-notes  glide  and   linger  and   I   no  longer 

lead. 

I  and  my  mercenaries  have  toiled  and  earned  our  truce 
We  have  swayed  your  hearts  to  silence  and  justified  our 

use. 
But  her  voice  evokes  the  fairies  whose  fingers  set  men 

free 
From  folly  and  forgetfulness  that  fetter  you  and  me. 

I    have   mastered   you   and   marshalled    you.     You   hung 

upon  my  hand. 

But  high  above  my  battlements  of  sound  I  see  her  stand, 
Like  God's  own  herald  proclaiming  His  terms  of  peace 

to  all. 


THE  LEADER  83 

And  I  alone  am  kneeling  in  the  shadow  of  the  wall, 
For  I,  my  birthright  shaming,  no  nearer  home  may  win; 
While  to  the  very  vault  of  heaven,  her  spirit  enters  in. 

New  York,  12-15-12 


THE  RECITAL 

THEY   groped   in   darkness  till   they  heard   the  har 
monies  of  wind  and  seas. 
They  felt  the  lilt  of  flying  feet.     They  took  the  tune  of 

water  falls. 
They  knew  the  notes  of  birds  and  all  the  hungry  forest's 

harsher  calls; 
Till    from    long    terror    and    delight    they    learned    their 

music  by  degrees. 
From    war-drums    throbbing    through    the    night,    from 

conches  hoarse  to  Bacchus  blown, 
From  clashing  brass  that  Cybele  adored,  each  chord  they 

made  their  own. 

Dull  nerves  time  tuned  through  centuries  grew  tense; 
raw  voices  clearer  rang. 

Then  came  the  masters.  Ear  and  hand  and  brain  con 
ceived  and  caused  to  be, 

Till  harp  and  drum  were  harmonized  and  harpsichord 
and  spinet  rang. 

They  framed  their  formal  scale  of  sound,  they  plotted 
curves  of  harmony, 

Made  music's  mathematics,  wrote  its  formula  and  codified 

The  truth  life  told  them,  note  by  note,  its  secrets  that 
in  silence  hide. 

They  listened  to  the  infinite  and  heard  the  Word  that 
comprehends 

84 


THE  RECITAL  85 

All   wisdom   and   all   ecstasy;   and    faltering   as  children 

speak, 
Fearing  the  voice  revealed  to  them,  they  tried  to  tell  what 

sound  transcends. 
Today   the   world    that   conquers   fear   and    goes   beyond 

where  they  were  weak 
Has  no  such  singers.     Here  I   sit  and  sound  the  scales 

of  life  today. 
And  I  have  power,  and  I  have  skill  and  I  have  hearing 

when  I  play. 

I   have  an  instrument  intense  and  adequate,  with  nerves 

of  steel 
As  the  new  world  you  live  in  now;  a  new  projection  of 

the  hands 
That    flit    like   butterflies    and    fall    like    cataracts;    that 

make  you   feel 
The  child's  delight,  the  sea's  unrest,  the  soul  of  love  that 

understands 
All  sorrows  and  all  mysteries  on  earth  that  makes  us  what 

we  are: 
The   fragrance  of  the  fading  rose,   the  splendor  of  the 

falling  star. 

Something    intangible    I    touch,    new    wireless    messages 
translate, 


86  THE  RECITAL 

I  see  their  stories  in  your  eyes,  and  on  your  trembling 

lips  detect, 
The  power  I  seize  to  sway  your  souls,  to  summon  them  to 

strive  with  fate, 

Till  my  piano,  throbbing,  drones  a  dynamo  of  intellect. 
And  then  I  see  those  trembling  hands  that  to  life's  limit 

drew  so  near, 
Ten  fingers  blind  stretched  out  to  God  to  bring  one  echo 

to  your  ear. 

Los  Angeles,  11-17-13 


THE  DEAD  SCULPTOR 

II  K  might  have  been  a  mother.     So 
*•  •*•   He  lived  with  life.     In  travail  sore 
He  brought  to  light  the  love  he  bore, 
And  paid  the  debt  all  living  owe. 

He  touched  its  substance.     Tenderly 
He  felt  the  spirit   in  the  clay 
And  gave  it  shape.     Like  hands  that  sway 
The  keys  that  sound  a  symphony, 

His  fingers  played  with  light  and  shade; 
Till  in  some  splendid  strength  of  line 
He  made  of  matter  chords  divine 
That  quiver  ever.     Life  he  weighed, 

In  human  hands,  as  mothers  hold 
Their  babies'  bodies  to  the  light: 
As  priests  before  their  altar  bright 
Lift  up  the  host.     The  truth  he  told, 

In  one  great,  common  mother  tongue 
To  all  the  world  in  praise  and  prayer. 
Men  felt  their  burdens  lifted  where 
They  found  his  heart  forever  young. 

And  still  it  beats  in  bronze  and  stone, 
And  still  he  smiles  in  sculptured  lips, 
87 


88  THE  DEAD  SCULPTOR 

That  whisper  what  his  finger  tips 
Caressed,  divined,  and  made  his  own. 

And  still  his  soul  in  sleepless  eyes 
Looks  out  at  us  and  lives  again : 
And  past  their  night  of  prayer  and  pain 
Finds  one  last  light  where  dying  dies. 

Pe conic,  6-13-14 


THE  SECRET 

I   CAN  NOT    paint    the    gateway    to   our    garden    and 
July. 
An  arch  of  half  trimmed  cedar  spars,  a  diamond  blue  of 

sky, 
Hetween   two  long  green   trellises  of   grapevines.     Over 

all 
The  little  rambler  roses  in  their  crimson  thousands  crawl. 

Ten   thousand  crimson  butterflies  upon  our  arbor  lit. 

The  sunbeams  kiss  their  petals  and  the  shadows  softly 
flit 

Through  the  gate  that  leads  to  gladness  where  blue  lark 
spurs  bloom  and  sway. 

White  sweet  williams,  purple  centered,  nod  their  welcome 
by  the  way. 

There  are  honeysuckle  hedges  sweet,  where  yellow  lips  and 

white 
Drink   the  dew   drops,   breathing  morning  back.     Their 

lamps  of  pure  delight 

All   the  roses  softly  lighting  on  the  altar  of  today 
Klame  aspiring,  yield  adoring,  scent  and  color  caught  from 

clay. 

I  cannot  paint  the  glory  and  the  gladness.     I  can  show 
Flakes  of  color,  flecks  of  sunshine,  shadows  long,  green 
trees  below, 

89 


90  THE  SECRET 

Where  the  pansies  open  eyes  beneath  small   brows  that 

seem  to  see 
Straight  and  clear  and  everlasting,  the  secret  lost  to  me. 

I  can  only  dream  of  rainbows,  dead  last  year,  today  re 
born  ; 

I  can  only  see  lost  sunsets,  all  the  gates  of  night  and 
morn, 

Leaking  out  stray  rays  of  glory,  till  I  tremble:  till  one 
thrill 

Of  all  life  upon  my  canvas  lies.  The  rest  is  dead  and 
still: 

Till  a  brooding  robin  singing,  life  interprets;  and  I  seize 
Something  of  the  droning,  purring  bliss  of  humming  birds 

and  bees; 
Till  two  laughing  children,  calling,  clasp  their  mother:  and 

I  know 
Why  the  Lord  of  storms  and  perils  sends  His  roses  here  to 

grow. 

Peconic,  6—24-14 


THE  TOUCHSTONE 

Y5,  sculpture's  hell  from  start  to  finish  till  at  last 
The  work  shall  stand  alone;  the  dream  your  heart 

conceived 
To    manhood's   stature    grown,    the   thought   your   brain 

received, 
The  shape  your  hands  have  held,  the  life  you  felt,  has 

passed 

Out  of  your  agonies:  until  the  stone  is  cut,  the  bronze  is 
cast. 

You  write;  your  fountain  pen  your  baton  black  transcribes. 
Thought's  instant  symphony,  that  for  the  few  transcends 
All  that  we  see  or  feel.  You  play.  Your  music  rends 
Sparse  heart  strings  tuned  to  it  and  ceases.  All  the  tribes 
Of  earth  that  heard  you  not,  shall  still  to  death  resign 
their  sordid  bribes. 


You  paint;  your  magic  wand,  your  screen  of  light  may 

throw 

New  luster  glad  on  life,  new  shadows  of  the  light 
That  lives  in  every  man,  whose  dreams  you  daub  with 

night. 

You  paint  upon  one  plane.     You  trick  us,  and  we  know 
Most  of  all  arts  that  fail  on  earth,  to  earth  the  darkest 

debt  you  owe. 


92  THE  TOUCHSTONE 

Yet  man  may  live  through  paint,  where  some  strong  soul 

is   found 

To  vitalize  its  lure;  as  man  through  words  may  live, 
Through  sounds,  life's  echoes  faint.     But  we  its  substance 

give. 

You  make  your  medium  slight,  elusive.     Truth  profound 
You  mirror  or  betray.     But  we  who  try  to  shape  life  in 

the  round, 

Our  burden  heavier  is  who  deal  with  weightier  things, 
With  matter  dull,  inert,  with  cold  and  clogging  clay. 
Life  in  the  rough  we  shape,  its  husks  we  shred  away: 
Its  essence  bring  to  light;  till  every  flaw  that  clings 
Falls  from  our  hands,  that  hold  at  last  the  truth  that  lives 
in  stone  that  sings. 

No  soundingboard   it  needs,  no  roof,  no  study  walls, 
From  every  angle  seen,   it  stands  in  square  and  street. 
Each  line  as  fine  and  clean  as  truth  made  fit  to  meet 
All ;  critic ;  child ;  each  life  that  halts,  that  hopes,  that 

crawls, 

To  touch  today's  white  monument  of  will   that  still   to 
morrow  calls. 

Peconic,     - 


THE  SICK  EDITOR 

O\^'K  I  was  young  and  I  trusted  time,  and  my  star 
rode  far  and  high. 
And  art  was  life,  and  an  editor  was  God's  own  ardent 

eye. 

Now,  day  by  day,  each  pleasant  lie,  each  dearest  dream 
must  die. 

Yesterday  noon  I  was  watching  a  gang  of  Dagoes  at  the 
pier 

Where  the  city's  waste  is  winnowed  out.  A  lump  of 
coal  lay  here. 

Maybe  a  diamond  lurked  in  this  endless  screen  of  sweep 
ings  drear. 

Acres  of  wasted  paper  pass.     My  hook  goes  out  to  seize 
Some  ragged  smear  of  blood  and  mud,  some  scrap  of  aim 
less  ease, 

Like  a  paper  rose  that  a  child  has  made.  And  you  read 
such  rags  as  these. 

And  the  mills  of  God's  imfamies  grind  on.     And  copy 

ceaseless  flows. 
In  farms  and  sweatshops  grinding  on,  each  tired  typewriter 

goes. 
And  I  see  their  frayed  processionals  of  faithless  verse  and 

prose. 

93 


94  THE  SICK  EDITOR 

God  that  has  given  us  life  to  live  and  His  words  of  life 

to  say, 
God  that  our  hearts  so  much  forgive:  did  His  heart  fore* 

see  this  day, 
When    He   laid    His   kiss   on    the   lips   of    Eve   and    He 

moulded  Eden's  clay? 

And   His  little  children  of  letters  come,  clever  and  still 

and  shy. 
Some  with  a  poet's  prescience,  some  with  want  in  each 

wide  eye. 
And  the  tender  lips  grow  tired  and  numb,  and  the  dearest 

dreams  must  die. 

Each  is  a  bread  line  Edith  says.     And   Edith's  eyes  see 

all. 
And  I  measure  them  out  my  alms  of  time.     And  day  by 

day  they  crawl 
With  their  little  shivering  loves  and  hates  through  a  hole 

in  the  office  wall. 

And  the  littlest,  cleverest  children  of  all  that  the  weary 

souls  of  men 
Play  with   because  they  pass   the   time:   they   cash   their 

checks,  and  then 
Some   tired   typewriter   gets   to  work   and   wastes   God's 

words  again. 


THE  SICK  EDITOR  95 

Once  the  morning  stars  together  sang  and  life  was  fair 

and  free, 
Fine  as  each  line  in   Edith's  hair  when  her  stare  turns 

back  to  me. 
For  we  are  the  slaves  of  swift  success,  and  its  sweepings, 

I   and  she. 

And  summer  time  is  weeks  away,  and  the  mountains  dim 

and   far. 
And  we  all  are  heaps  of  crumbling  clay.     God's  searchers 

gray  we  are 
Who  toil  to  find  one  gem  today,  tonight  to  see  one  star. 

Paris,  4-8-14 


ART  IN  THE  SLUMS 

BLINDLY  you  snatched  at  surfaces  like  children, 
Painted  your  prostitutes  of  money  kings: 
There   where    you    smeared    life's    face   with    rouge    and 

powder. 

Lying,  you  trick  today  with  trivial  things. 
Art  is  an  angel.     You  have  bound  her  wings. 

Art  is  the  heart's  long  hunger  for  enduring. 
Art  is  the  restless  will  that  wrestles  past 
Hunger  and  pain  and  loneliness  in  silence. 
Art  is  the  faith  that  feasts  where  flesh  must  fast. 
Art  is  the  soul  that  lives  in  strength  at  last: 

Keen  as  a  surgeon's  scalpel,  clean,  unswerving, 
Seeking  the  truth  that  meets  today's  demands; 
Cleaving  all  surface  lures,  to  seize  the  secret: 
Art  is  the  brain  that  sees  and  understands. 
Art  is  the  loving  touch  of  tender  hands. 

You  have  not  known  her.     You  have  smeared  like  chil 
dren, 

Colors  of  greed,  and  sordid  haste  and  shame; 
Colors  that  shriek  for  crowds  upon  the  pavement; 
Pictures  life  tramples  underfoot.     Your  fame 
Breaks  like  a  bubble  who  blaspheme  her  name. 

Art  is  a  child.     Its  artist,  like  a  mother, 
Suffers  all  things  to  bring  this  life  to  birth; 

06 


ART  IN  THE  SLUMS  97 

Nurses  it,  clasps  it,  loves  it  for  a  life  time; 
Grows  with  it  slowly,  making  sorrow  mirth 
When  art's  long  patience  shall  possess  the  earth. 

Art  is  the  service  you  have  scorned,  who  hlindly 
Snatched  her  least  gifts.     Her  temple  stands  obscure, 
Far  from  the  eyes  of  riches.     All  who  sorrow 
See  her  in  truth  that  stands  while  days  endure. 
Art  is  God's  gospel  painted  for  the  poor. 

Pcconic,  6-29-14 


THE  CURATOR 

M  KM  PHIS   this  mirror  made  immortal.     I   like  to 
think  of  the  smooth  brown  faces; 
A  dancer's  smile  like  the  Nile  in  sunlight,  a  priest  like 

the  heads  on  his  mummy  cases; 
Placid  and  wise,  unchanging,  watching  the  life  that  comes 

and    the   life   that   goes, 
In  little  ripples  that  lapse  forever  the  way  that  his  smooth 

brown  river  flows, 
Life  that  rippled  my  dancer's  lips  when  she  bent  from  this 

bronze  till  she  kissed  a  rose. 

And  her  sister  priestesses  of  Isis  some  old  Egyptian  lover 

painted, 
Tripping  along  by  the  Nile  to  the  temple,  like  these  Greek 

girls  by  grief  untainted, 
In  a  fragment  white  of  a  frieze  from  Corinth,  with  their 

youth  that  the  years  can  never  kill. 
And  we  worshipped  life  till  we  made  Madonnas.     And 

we  painted  passions  pure  that  thrill, 
Stirred  by  the  growth  of  the  god  within  them.     I  can 

see  them  smile  in  the  shadow  still. 


Joy  was  always  beautiful.     Slowly  beauty  in  sorrow  we 

learned  to  render, 
Wistful  lips  with  their  pain  prophetic  making  relentless 

truth  more  tender. 

98 


THE  CURATOR  99 

Then  came  Rembrandt  and  beauty  in  ruins  found  in  the 

beggar,  in  faces  old 
Warped  by  the  storms  of  the  barren  seasons.     Today  you 

tell  me  that  art  is  cold, 
Hearing  no  voice,  seeing  no  visions;  and  art  draws  near 

to  her  age  of  gold. 

Millions  of  years  have  mixed  her  pigments,  savage  dyes 

for  her  face  preparing. 
Fear  gave  color.     The  shaman's  symbols  imaged  a  night 

full  of  fiends  unsparing. 
Rough  brown  idols,  blackened  by  bloodshed  slowly  shaped 

to  the  gods  of  Greece, 
White  in  the  sun  for  one  hour.     And  never  has  art  yet 

won  for  her  soul  release. 
Art  is  a  pilgrimage  that  ceases,  only  when  life  on  this 

earth  shall  cease. 


Now  through  these  halls  I  can  see  them  marching,  pio 
neers  of  her  years  un reckoned, 

Monks  with  their  manuscripts  illumined,  masters  old  of 
one  human  second. 

Now  we  have  made  a  new  world  in  a  minute,  millionfold 
power  remultiplied. 

You  of  your  little  faith  who  are  fretful,  look  for  your 
art  your  heart  inside. 


ioo  THE  CURATOR 

Art  is  the  younger  sister  of  science.     Just  so  long  shall 
her  secrets  hide. 

Science  is  patience,  art  is  her  sister.     Now  we  are  testing 

her  spectrum  slowly. 
Common  things  show  in  rarer  colors,  shed  new  light  over 

streets  unholy. 
And  the  world  is  newly  rich.     It  is  dazzled  by  a  myriad 

sudden  and  shifting  goals. 
And  the  blindest  paint  the  harlots  of  millions,  advertize 

art  that  must  take  its  tolls 
From  surfeit  and  waste,  while  it  toils  with  the  toilers: 

till  it  sees,  till  it  feels,  till  it  fills  men's  souls. 

San  Francisco,   J/-JO-IJ 


PICTURES  FOR  MEN 

MUST  paint  pictures  of  men   in   a  world   of  men 
*-         that  toil, 

Men  on  bent  masts  at  sea  in  the  lee  of  the  drip  of  oil, 
Lashed  to  a  sea  anchor ;  men  in  a  ship  in  the  grip  of  the 

frozen  floes, 
Blasting    the    ice    into    rainbo\ved    hail:    men    where    the 

grail  in  a  stoke  hole  glows: 
Men    in    full   dories   laboring   homeward    into   the   night 

through  the  gray  water  rows. 

Men  in  the  mines  that  drill  until  June  swings  round  to 

June: 
Stabbing  the  guts  of  earth  with  their  bomb  tipped  steel 

harpoon : 
Lashed  by  the  fringe  of  a  blast,  falling  where  fire  damp 

spreads : 
Men  that  fall  under  our  feet;  men  that  drive  over  our 

heads ; 
Tracking   the   trail   of   the   reeking   rail   and    racing  the 

storms  through  the  gray  watersheds. 

Men   in   long  cuts  and   fills  in   the  forests;  men   in  the 

mist, 

Swinging  wet  girders  home  while  the  rusting  cables  twist, 
Locking  the  wards  of  the  bridge;  men  whose  new  cities 

rise 

101 


102  PICTURES  FOR  MEN 

Laying  steel  floor  upon  floor  like  bricks  to  bind  the  skies. 
Men  that  the  quicksands  have  caged  in  the  pit,  where  the 
last  deep  foundation  its  vortex  defies. 

Men  at  new  motors  of  life,  white  as  they  skid  through 

night : 
Men  on  tall  traveling  cranes:  in  the  subway's  shuttles  of 

light, 

Men  in  dim  submarines:  men  in  a  mob  in  the  street 
Cleaving  the  crowds  with  their  clashing  gongs:  men  on 

the  roofs,  that  meet 
Dragging  their  hose  over  crashing  walls,  where  the  granite 

flows  down  the  billows  of  heat. 

Men  that  dissect  the  stars,  divorce  the  atoms,  where 
Plague  in  the  test  tube  boils,  men  whose  clear  thought 

is  prayer; 

Men  with  the  surgeon's  knife  cutting  old  sins  away 
From  the  rotting  limbs  of  life,  till  they  stand  to  serve 

today. 
I  must  paint  pictures  of  men,  of  their  hands,  till  my  hands 

and  pictures  together  shall  pray. 

Too  long  we  have  learned   to  play  with  art  and   life's 

laces  and  silk, 
Meddled  with  women's  skins  and  muddled  with  roses  and 

milk; 


PICTURES  FOR  MEN  103 

And   the  world   demands  today  a  word   of   life  at   our 

hands. 

And  we  may  not  turn  away  longer  from  life's  demands. 
I  shall  paint  pictures  of  masters  that  say  how  the  soul 

of  the  street  in  its  mastery  stands. 

Peconic,  8-10-14 


TRUTH 

ALL  the  rest  shall  fall  away, 
Flake  and  fade.     But  this  alone 
Stands  tomorrow  and  today 
Like  God's  statutes  strong  in  stone. 

Athens  carved   them  slowly  so, 
Florence  flamed  in  bronze  that  lives; 
Gave  their  gods.     The  rest  shall  go. 
Time  that  nothing  false  forgives, 

Tests  your  strength  and  sleight  of  hand, 
Racks  your  heart  and  rends  your  brain, 
Till  your  soul  can  understand 
All  things  perfect  born  of  pain. 

Every  slight  and  sordid  lie, 
Each  black  treason  to  the  light, 
Every  lesser  lust  shall  die: 
Till  your  will  glows  still  and  white. 

Envy,  rancor,   fear  and  pride, 

Praise  that  lures,  and  blame  that  brands, 

Failure  faced  and  greed  denied 

Fuse  life's  essence  to  your  hands. 

Then  beneath  your  canvas  glows, 
Through  your  bronze  and  marble  thrills 
104 


TRUTH  105 


Color  fairer  than  the  rose, 
Strength  that  shall  outlast  the  hills. 

Through  your  words  a  wisdom  sings, 
That  the  world's  last  need  demands: 
Until  time  your  message  brings 
To  life's  service  sure  that  stands. 

Pe conic,  8-1—14 


REGIONAL 


LITTLE  BRIDES  OF  MARY 

LIKK  the  color  of  a  dewdrop  in  the  morning  of  the 
year, 
Like  a  bluebird  heard  in  April  on  a  note  that's  far  and 

near, 
Like  the  blossoms  white  that  catch  the  light  where  serried 

cherry  trees 

Lift  their  snowdrifts  up  the  hillside,  petals  trembling  on 
the  breeze: 


They  begin  to  bud  and  blossom  in  the  mother's  month 

of  May, 
With  their  eyes  of  unwise  angels,  childish  voices  grave 

and  gay: 
With  their  little  childish   footsteps,  down  the  highways, 

through  the  streets 
Everywhere   that    France,   that    Paris  their   white   litany 

repeats : 

Childish  voices  put  their  questions,  whisper  words  they 

never  know, 
Where  in  Paris,  where  in  peril,  through  perdition  must 

we  go? 
Who  of  us  shall   find   perfection   in  the  pallid   paths  of 

peace  ? 
Who  in  grime,  and  who  in  slime  and  bloodshed  earn  red 

life's  release? 

109 


i  io  LITTLE  BRIDES  OF  MARY 

Who  of  us  shall  sin  and  stronger  grow,  so  serve  the  Lord 

of  all, 
Life  the  Moloch,  life  the  maker  of  His  stars  and  servants 

small ; 
Life   the   master  of   our   armies   and   the  children's   last 

crusade ; 
Little  petals  white  of  worship,  born   today  to   fall   and 

fade. 

They  are  gone.     The  streets  of  Paris  strike  their  strange 

and  strident  notes. 
Through  their  symphony  of  living  something  sacred  sings 

and  floats; 
Something  that  one  sees  at  sunset,  through  the  shadows 

of  a  shrine, 
In  each  small  white  altar  light  of  love  that  dying  makes 

divine. 

Paris,     - 


THE  HOST  IN  THE  HILLS 

YOU  live  in  the  shaded  valleys;  you  die  on  the  treeless 
plains : 

And  hlind  go  down  to  darkness.  Your  dust  alone  re 
mains. 

You  toil  in  the  restless  city.  You  choke  in  its  stagnant 
smoke, 

Though  once  to  the  light  in  a  woman's  eyes  your  strug 
gling  spirit  woke: 

Mount  to  the  mounts  of  vision  with  a  heart  that  hopes 
and  thrills, 

Though  your  breath  shall  fail  as  you  take  the  trail  to 
the  highway  of  the  hills: 

To  these  old  Italian  cities  that  a  wiser  world  has  made, 
Where  war  and  love  were  the  workers,  and  art  was  the 

bride  of  trade, 
And  the  lust  of  the  brute  was  bondsman  and  master  day 

and  night, 
Of  Faith  that  found  its  God  in  flesh  and  bound  each  cross 

crowned  height 

With  a  chain  of  stone  and  story,  where  vine  and  olive  climb 
Up  through  the  time  scarred  summits,  to  blue  skies  un 
touched  by  time. 

Comma's  Citadel  defies  the  years.     Assisi  here 
With  Francis,  God's  good  prodigal,  the  saints  in  heaven 
revere. 

in 


ii2  THE  HOST  IN  THE  HILLS 

Perugia  rears  her  ramparts  proud,   her  griffin's  nest  of 

stone. 
Foligno  crests  her  holy  height.     Her  houses  gray  have 

grown 
Like  lichens  from  the  living  rock.     And  like  one  starless 

sea, 
Wave    after    wave    the    Apennines    are    wonderful    and 

free. 

Here  is  a  world  of  wonder:  no  less  where  you  shall  go 
Through   shaded   lanes  and   court  yards  close,   and   love 

and  labor  know, 
Where  dead  Etruscan  husbandmen  their  terraced  gardens 

piled ; 
Where  Perugino  taught  his  trade  and  Raphael  toiled  and 

smiled ; 

And  goats  that  crop  the  hedges  rear  high  beside  the  way: 
And  young  Admetus  drives  them  forth  from  a  world  too 

old  to  play. 

Toil  upon  ceaseless  toiling  these  walls  of  giants  laid, 
And  stone  on  stone  of  truth  they  squared  and  set  whose 

hands  have  made 
Rampart  and  tower,  and  tomb  and  shrine.     There  priests 

and  choirsters  led 
In  long  processionals  the  host;  but  they  who  knelt  and 

bled 


THE  HOST  IN  THE  HILLS  113 

To  make  their  masonry  the  throne  of  God  unknown  on 

high ; 
Look  where  they  left  bare  steps  of  stone  to  altars  in  the 

sky. 

Perugia,  6-JI-IJ 


KARMA 

THROUGH  the  dying  brazen  booming  of  the  throb 
bing  temple  bells, 

Through  the  streets  of  old  Kyoto,  to  the  hearts  of  liv 
ing  men, 
Runs  a  thinner  note  that  waves,  quavers,  rises,  sinks  and 

swells ; 
Till  the  drifting  dust  is  shifting,  dancing  to  a  samisen. 

They  were  lovers  in  the  springtime.      They  were  happy 

for  a  night. 
For   a   day    they    lived   like   lovebirds   born    of   light,    of 

Buddha's  smile, 
Walking  where  the  cherry  blossoms  hid  the  world  with 

walls  of  white. 
And   the   blossoms,   falling,   calling,   whispered  warnings 

all  the  while. 

"  O  the  agonies  of  lovers/     He  was  poor  and  she  a  slave, 
Youngest  in  the  Yoshiwara.     All  their  years  of  youth  we 

knew. 
Made  one  sword  our  key  to  midnight,  lay  together  in  the 

grave. 
Karma  called  us  through  the  ages  till  we  lived  at  last  in 

you. 

"  O  the  agonies  of  lovers!  "     Though  the  singer's  smile 
is  old, 

114 


KARMA  115 

Lustreless   her   lips,    and    sightless   eyes   that   long   have 

looked  at  pain, 
Through  her  voice  her  heart  revealing,  like  a  slender  wire 

of  gold, 
Steals  a  thrill  of  vital  feeling  calling  souls  to  life  again. 

Through  the  faces  gray  and  dying,  through  the  old  Kyoto 

streets, 
Runs  a  trembling  of  old  heart  strings  to  her  fingers  worn 

and  sure. 

Of  a  million  million  lovers,  each  his  love  in  April  meets 
On  the  lips  of  girls  around  her,  wistful,  fair,  and  warm 

and  pure. 

Kyoto,  /2-J/-/J 


BISKRA 

GOD'S  gray  earth  as  God  first  made  it,  Biskra  brings 
to  you  and  me. 

Round  about  the  green  oasis  like  a  frozen,  dusty  sea, 
Hills  and  dunes  surge  on  and  halt.     Here  the  French  a 

desert  found, 
Went  to  work  and  built  a  railroad.     Now  the  wheels  go 

rolling  round. 
Down  to  Biskra  from  the  mountains,  down  two  slender 

strands  of  steel 
Where  the  master  of  tomorrow  strikes  a  note  the  nomads 

feel. 


All   the  wires  beside  the  rails  that  thrill  with  preludes 

strange  and  new, 
Of  the  song  today  is  singing;  sound  its  tensions  stern  and 

true; 

Stir  the  desert.     Desolation  wakes  and  living  water  flows 
Out  of  earth  in  wells  artesian  till  the  grayness  greener 

grows. 

Muddy  irrigation  ditches,  ripples  dull  that  leap  and  run, 
Spell  the  motives  of  tomorrow's  larger  life  beneath  the 

sun. 

Biskra  stirs,  and  life  electric  through  her  tents  in  tumult 
thrills, 

Here  the  desert;  there  the  sunlight  feels  the  clash  of  mas 
ter  wills, 

116 


BISKRJ  117 

Stony  hills  where  hell's  huge  seething  cauldron  fought  to 

overflow ; 
Sandy  dunes  for  zeons  drifting;  now  a  stronger  master 

know. 
Man  grows  more.     And  men  who  Mindly  yesterday  the 

line  surveyed 
Human  hrutes  who  bore  its  sleepers;  God's  own  path  to 

glory  made. 

Yesterday  they  scaled  their  levels,  yesterday  through  tun 
nels  toiled, 

Starved  and  suffered  on  the  desert,  saw  their  starkest  ef 
forts  foiled ; 

Yesterday  they  won  to  water;  dying  slaked  our  thirst. 
And  we 

Down  to  Biskra,  o'er  the  mountains  bring  unrest  that  stirs 
the  sea ; 

Bring  the  city,  bring  the  spirit  of  its  struggles,  of  its  sins; 

Life  that  creeps  and  life  that  soaring,  still  to  wider  wor 
ship  wins. 

Biskra  bows  before  its  altars.  Idle  tourists  stare  and 
pass, 

And  the  God  unknown  that  made  them  sees  each  spread 
ing  growth  of  grass, 

[Sees  new  gardens;  smiles;  and  slowly  suns  from  utmost 
midnight  draws, 


n8  BISKRA 

Sends  His  light  to  man  that  slowly  masters  time's  eternal 

laws. 
Biskra  smiles,  and  Biskra  burns;  and  Biskra's  arc-lights 

in  the  sand 
Mark  the  trail  where  man   goes  marching  till  his  soul 

shall  understand. 

Algiers,  3-19-14 


COI'ENT  GARDEN 

GRAY  old  Covcnt  Garden  bears  its  blossoms  fair  of 
song, 
Hears  its  flowers  in  murky  airs.     They  blossom  all  day 

long, 
Free  to  all   who  chance  to  see.     Here  are  bought  and 

sold 

Little  living  miracles  of  sunlight  scented  gold, 
Suns  and  stars  and  galaxies,  yours  to  have  and  hold. 

Incense  of  the  dews  and  dawn  drawn  for  many  a  mile, 
Come  in  slow  procession  while  the  gutter  children  smile. 
Beauty  past  the  windows  blind  the  plodding  carters  bring, 
Radiance   of   the    rainbows   mixed    with    all    the   airs   of 

spring, 
London's  ancient  offering  to  life,  her  lord  and  king. 

English  pink  primroses  that  a  drunken  hag  has  pressed 
Close  against  her  mask  of  pain  to  gain  a  moment's  rest ; 
Paler  stars  that  shine  where  death  his  dirges  slow  recites, 
Roses   red    that   women   wear   through    golden   days   and 

nights, 
Little  laughing  marigolds  and  violets,  shy  delights. 

All  are  in  the  traffic  that  our  motor  marches  through, 
Hooting  through  their  fragrance  on  our  way  to  Water 
loo. 

We  have  watched  the  magic  of  the  moment  that  is  May, 

119 


120  CO  VENT  GARDEN 

We  have  heard  our  morning  mass;  where  London,  grim 

and  gray 
Makes  its  sweetest  offering  to  joy  that  dies  today. 

S.S.  St.  Paul,  5-4-14 


THE  SALESMAN 

YIERDAY  as  I  was  waiting  by  the  gate  at  Water 
loo, 
Came  a  porter  with  his  load  of  trunks  and  slowly  trucked 

them  through. 

And  some  were  lahelled  Zanzibar,  some  Delagoa  Bay, 
With  a  cricket  hag  high  on  the  top,  where  the  English 

work  and  play 

Five  thousand  miles  away  from  home  as  their  fathers  used 
to  do. 


And  I  wondered  as  I  watched  him  if  that  porter  ever 
thought 

How  he  thrust  an  empire  onward  with  the  baggage  that 
he  brought 

From  that  little  northern  island,  that  from  pole  to  south 
ern  pole 

Thrusts  its  outposts  through  the  oceans,  while  the  years 
like  oceans  roll 

Around  its  crumbling  fringes,  till  its  final  war  is  fought. 

And  I  wondered  if  he  pondered  on  new  strikes  for  cent 

per  cent, 

On  the  rising  cost  of  living  and  the  higher  cost  of  rent, 
If  no  gleam  of  sudden  insight  made  his  service  seem  di 
vine, 

If  he  saw  he  sent  new  pioneers  on  to  fill  the  firing  line 
Of  England  on  its  outposts  in  God's  darkest  continent. 

121 


122  THE  SALESMAN 

I  suppose  he  went  on  walking  with  no  eye  to  look  within 
On  some  book  beyond  the  Bible  that  should  make  new 

worlds  begin 
In  a  Boer's  benighted  brain,  and  there  perhaps  he  laid  his 

hands 
On   God's   messages  of   music  that   should   bring  divine 

commands 
To  some  Kaffir  in  the  desert  with  a  soul  to  lose  or  win. 

Possibly  he  saw  the  pictures  of  a  painter's  palette  there, 
Or  a  surgeon's  case  of  scalpels,  bits  of  things  that  babies 

wear, 
Fashioned   by   today's   Madonnas  with   the   prayers   that 

make  divine 
Daily  sacraments  of  living.     So  he  trucked  them  down  the 

line, 
With  his  stolid  stride  and  shoulders,  shoulders  big  and 

bowed  and  square. 

Life  today  is  mostly  luggage.     I  sell  motors  for  my  pains. 
And  I  keep  the  traffic  moving  over  mountains,  over  plains. 
My  new  models  over  oceans  I  go  trucking ;  and  I  see 
Men  and  women  marching  in  them,  God's  new  models 

that  shall  be 
Of   tomorrow   I    am   making   while    I    wait    for   steamer 

trains. 

S.S.  St.  Paul,  5-5-14 


S\  PURDAY 
side. 


NATURE  AND  THE  PIT 

rnoon  in  June,  I  warm  the  court  try- 


I  paint  the  hills  with  purple.     My  arms  I  open  wide. 
Saturday  afternoon  in  June  the  playhouse  and  the  halls 
Where  the  housetops   hide   the  vistas,   stifle  my  clearest 

calls. 

And  the  little,  pitiful  people,  single  and  double  line, 
Shuffle  and  crawl  along  the  wall.     Without  a  world  di 
vine 

Waits  on  the  Surrey  reaches,  in  Kentish  woods  and  lanes. 
And   little  people  huddle   here,   and   hide   from   fear  and 

pains. 

A  beggar  whines  along  the  line.     A  sick  girl  casts  away 
Into  his  hat  the  coppers  of  her  heart's  last  holiday. 

They  form  them  up  in  fours  at  last.     They  pass  the  wicket 

through. 

London's  last  ragged  regiment  in  tawdry  dress  review. 
Kismet!    The    curtain    rises.     The    beggar    whines    and 

prays 

Till  Allah's  will  prepares  for  him  at  last  his  day  of  days. 
A  harlot's  lips  are  loosed   in  smiles  as   Hadji  the  cynic 

speaks. 
And  love  has  kindled   rosy  lights  on  a  woman's  wasted 

cheeks. 
He  grasps  at   gold   and  women.     He  fights  his  foes  to 

kill. 

123 


i24  NATURE  AND  THE  PIT 

Adventure  wakes  in  eyes  malign,  and  restless  hands  arc 

still. 
Kismet!     The   curtain    falls   as   Allah's  caliph's   will    is 

told, 
The  beggar  banished.     Hearts  that  flamed  grow  dull  and 

cold  and  old. 

And  little  various  vices  and  sins  in  sordid  shapes 

Wait  at  the  curb  and  watch  for  them.     And  men  who 

once  were  apes 

Have  lost  their  hour  of  wonder  as  I  my  hour  have  lost. 
You   have   made  of   me  a   harlot.     Today  you   pay   the 

cost. 
You  make   my  children   cruel   and   tame,   and   trite  and 

vile. 

And  out  in  the  open  spaces,  I  live  and  learn  to  smile. 
You  make  my  vagrants  vermin,  and  I  return  their  taints 
To  the  voices  of  your  virgins  and   the  visions  of  your 

saints. 

You  hunt  me  from  the  open  and  I  steal  and  double  past 
The  shadows  black  that  shroud  the  pit  to  save  you  at  the 

last. 

London,  4-20-14 


APRIL  IN  THE  LUXEMBOURG 

EARTH  that  slept  is  waking,  stirring,  parting  veib  of 
April  rain, 

Thrusting  back  the  clouds.  And  Paris  feels  her  fresh 
ness  green  again. 

Winds  of  March  that  hushed,  have  whispered.  Smiling 
ripples  idly  stir 

Through  the  blue  where  birds  are  calling,  falling.  Day's 
first  worshipper 

Calls  the  restless  soul  of  Paris  up  to  life  and  light  with 
her. 


God  who  made  His  earth  a  garden,  made  them  man  and 

woman  there, 
Made  the  sky  to  be   His  shadow,  made   His  flowers  of 

April  fair, 
Made  the  trees  to  be   His  temples,  made  the  birds   His 

heart  to  sing, 
Made  His  love  to  shape  the  issues  of  each  least  and  living 

thing, 
Made  His  Paris  for  His  pleasure,  in  His  smile  which  is 

the  spring. 

Paris  passes  from  the  shadows.     Through  her  streets  of 

greed  and  shame 
Seeks  His  garden  in  the  open,  sees  each  tulip's  torch  of 

flame, 

125 


i2b         APRIL  IN  THE  LUXEMBOURG 

Goes  to  greet  the  sun  her  lover  like  the  wind.  With  eye 
lids  \vet 

Leaning  on  her  latest  lover,  every  little  midinette 
Smiles  and  hoards  one  hour  of  hope  that  all  her  life  shall 
not  forget: 

Wakes  by  bird  song  from  her  garret,  steals  through  shad 
ows  to  today, 

Where  the  winds  with  waving  fountains  from  their  cen 
sers  scatter  spray ; 

Where  the  lilacs  lift  her  eyelids,  till  the  dawn  has  drawn 
her  lips. 

All  tilings  wonderful  that  women  treasure  up  till  love's 
eclipse, 

Lift  her  till  all  life  lies  trembling  at  her  trembling  finger 
tips. 

In  the  shadows  he  is  waiting,  small  and  furtive,  mean  and 
old, 

But  his  heart  mounts  up  to  meet  her,  there  to  share  her 
hour  of  gold. 

There  she  holds  her  Host  to  Heaven.  For  one  hour 
there  glorified 

She  is  Eve  in  God's  own  garden,  she  whose  son  for  sin 
ners  died ; 

Till  the  iron  wheels  of  Paris  grind  to  dust  the  day  out 
side. 
Paris,  4-23-14 


SOLDIERS  OF  LIFE 

I   HAVE  finished  my  regular  stint  at  last,  I  have  written 
my  thousand  words  today, 
Ranged  my  last  regiment  raw  in  ranks,  drilled  them  and 

driven  them  down  their  way. 
Sent  them  to  reinforce  the  rest  till  my  book  is  an  army 

made  complete. 

And  sudden,  the  sound  of  a  bugle  blast  peals  through  the 
rush  of  this  Paris  street. 

Thrilling  the  length  of  the  boulevard,  twenty-four  trum 
pets  of  brass  begin, 

Where  the  houses  stand  in  two  ranks  on  guard,  to  blare 
through  the  traffic,  their  way  to  win. 

Cleaving  the  press  like  the  point  of  a  lance,  through  a 
mist  that  melts,  through  a  drizzle  of  rain, 

Soldiers  of  France  into  light  advance,  and  the  sun  leaps 
out  into  sight  again. 

Nearer  and  nearer  the  columns  come,  longer  and  longer 

stretches  the  line, 
Faster  and  faster  beat  the  drums,  the  red  legs  twinkle,  the 

bayonets  shine, 
And   Paris  wakes  out  of  her  mid-day  trance,  her  pulses 

quicken,  her  eyeballs  gleam, 
And  she  halts  and  huzzas  for  her  soldiers  of  France,  and 

a  song  in  steel,  and  a  scarlet  dream. 


128  SOLDIERS  OF  LIFE 

Soldiers  of  France,  you  are  mine  today,  and  I  stand  at  my 

window  and  heart  and  hand, 
Crippled  and  halt,  hidden  away,  leap  up  at  the  light  of 

your  fatherland, 
At  the  red  in  her  blood,  at  the  lilt  in  her  voice,  at  the  song 

of  freedom  for  all  she  sings, 
Soldiers  of  France,  march  on,  rejoice  till  they  fester  and 

fall,  all  their  pestilent  kings. 

Soldiers  of  France  on  the  last  frontiers  of  life  and  freedom 

through  jungles  dark, 
You  are  pioneers,  and  you  blaze  the  way  for  us  who  halt 

in  our  homes  and  mark 
The  sweat  you  shed,  and  the  blood  that's  red,  and  the  dead 

and  dying  that  thread  your  trails. 

Blood    of    the    legions    Napoleon    led,    that    Caesar    sum 
moned,  France  never  fails. 

Battered  and  bloody  she  sinks  to  her  knees,  till  with  one 

hand  on  her  mother  earth, 
Splendid  and  sure  through  the  smoke  she  sees  beyond  the 

battle,  new  freedom's  battle. 
We  who  are  waging  our  war  with  words,  on  faith  and 

freedom's  final  frontiers, 
We  are  your  brothers,  her  spirit's  heirs;  for  us  a  vision,  a 

voice  appears. 


SOLDIERS  OF  LIFE  129 

Jehanne,  the  saint  and  the  soldier  maid,  and  the  soul  of 

France  and  her  soldiers  still, 
Battered  and  bleeding  and  unafraid,  she  lives  in  Paris  our 

hearts  to  thrill. 
Still  in  the  sunset  her  spirit  stands  on  its  pyre  of  fire,  on 

the   Martyr's  hill. 
Soldiers  of  France,  though  we  die  alone,  while  we  halt 

by  the  side  of  your  Mount  Parnasse, 
While  we  read  the  leaves  of  your  book  of  stone,  till  in 

the  shadows  all  passions  pass. 
We  may  win  to  the  wonder  round  the  throne,  to  her  walls 

of  onyx,  her  towers  of  glass. 

Paris,  5-10-13 


EMIGRANTS 

WHITECHAPEL  courts  were  killing  us  where  fog 
and  smoke  choke  children's  breath. 
The  Argentine  had   stripped  our  farms.     Our   England 

slowly  starved  to  death. 
A  letter  came  from  Edmonton.     We  saw  a  poster  in  the 

Strand ; 
Like  pavement  pictures  crude,  of  chalk,  we  planned  our 

people's  Promised  Land. 
When  debts  and  drink  had  dragged  us  down  to  Surrey 

docks  where  drop  lights  shine 
Through  glades  of  steel,  they  stripped  away  our  sickest 

while  we  stood  in  line. 


One  judgment  day  was  done  with.     So  your  transport 

took  us  down  your  stream ; 
Your  raw  recruits  of  life,  to  go  where  snow  peaks  glow, 

where  rapids  gleam, 
Past  Greenwich,  Sheerness,  out  to  sea  we  steamed.     We 

left  the  Foreland  light. 
We  lost  the  Lizard.     Suddenly  to  England  gone  we  said 

goodnight. 
And  winds  and  waves  were  shaping  us  to  stand  or  fall 

in  England's  fight. 

From  fog,  from  steerage  slime  we  came.     One  sunset's 
flames  lit  Newfoundland, 
130 


EMIGRANTS  131 

Our  babes,  our  women,  open-eyed  saw  land  draw  near  on 

either  hand, 
They  fed  us  through  their  mill  again  at  Montreal.     We 

caught  the  cars. 
And  fast  and  faster  rolled  away  to  where  the  mountains 

meet  the  stars. 

They   spilled    us   o'er   the   prairie    floor    at   sidings   lone, 

Saskatchewan 
Took  toll  of  us,  Alberta  more.     But  still  our  strongest 

hearts  held  on, 
Till  our  last  truck  had  topped  the  grade.     We  clanking 

faster  forth  to  sea 
Like  batteries  hurled  down  to  battle,  found  new  frontiers 

of  destiny. 

The  mountain's  province  and  the  coast  had  called  us  to 
their  firing  line, 

All  England  and  the  White  Man's  host  to  reinforce. 
Where  yonder  pine 

Towers  two  hundred  feet  above  the  pass,  our  viking  chil 
dren  play 

Clear  eyed,  surefooted,  strong  of  hand,  to  save  your  slaves 
of  yesterday, 

Vour  ulcer  cities  in  the  east  that  eat  the  white  man's 
strength  away. 


1 32  EMIGRANTS 

Our  fathers  held  our  Northland  hills  and  woods,  and  ruled 
her  restless  sea. 

And  South,  and  West  and  East  they  went  and  carved  your 
charts  whose  hearts  were  free, 

Numidia  sacked,  Byzantium  and  Asia  scourged.  Our 
sons  today 

Before  the  yellow  legions  come  with  long  ships  westward 
shall  away, 

Till  in  the  final  war  of  all,  down  from  the  pole,  around 
the  world,  flying  like  eagles  to  the  feast, 

Shades  of  old  Vikings  sentries  call  our  Northland  squad 
rons  sunset  hurled,  their  airship  arrows  aiming  east. 

S.S.  Scotian,  7-29-13 


THE  OPEN  QUESTION 


THE  OPEN  QUESTION 

WHKN  I  am  dead  and  gone,  sweetheart,  this  restless 
world  shall  he 

A  little  darker,  emptier,  more  drear,  a  little  space; 
Till  life  that  pave  you  grace  to  love  shall  teach  your  eyes 

to  see 
A  little  more,  a  moment  dear,  before  they  fill  your  place. 


And  if  I  knew  the  end  of  all,  the  hour  my  light  went  out; 
Tomorrow  or  tonight  maybe  —  you  wonder  what  I'd  do; 
And  should  I  march  alone  to  death  and  meet  him  with  a 

shout ; 
Or  should  I  shudder  here  at  home  and  creep  and  cling  to 

you? 

You  could  not  love  a  coward,  dear,  if  war  were  round  our 

walls. 
And  war  is  ever  round  the  world,  and  all  God's  soldiers 

£0 

Up  to  the  last  grim  firing  line,  and  each  in  order  falls. 
I  could  not  love  your  life  alone,  nor  mine,  to  lose  it  so. 

Tonight  may  be  the  end  of  all.     And  after,  no  one  knows. 
I  cannot  hide  my  candle  end  and  hoard  for  us  alone, 
When  souls  are  sinking  in  the  storm,  from  every  gust  that 

blows 

The  God  in  me  that  must  attain,  this  talent  still  my  own. 

135 


1 36  THE  OPEN  QUESTION 

And  if  the  end  is  near  or  far,  and  if  we  live  or  die 
Beyond   the  blackness,   matters   not  so  long  as   in   your 

sight 

I  have  stood  up  unterrified ;  and  learned  to  testify 
To  all  the  million  flames  of  God  that  mount  to  meet  the 

night. 

New  York,  11-19-12 


SURVIVAL 

LI  I •  l-'.'S    procession,   starting,   struggling,   whence   and 
how  and  why  and  where ; 
Out  of  sea  ooze,  out  of  ether,  out  of  night,  that  stair  by 

stair, 

Climbs  to  light;   that  suddenly  is  lost   in  darkness  and 
despair: 


Those  we  love  that  out  of  shadows,  from  the  blackness  of 

the  womb, 
From   the  mists  of  distance  drifting,   limned  with   light 

against  the  gloom, 
Grow  so  near  and  warm  and  dear,   until  the  midnight 

makes  their  tomb: 

All  the  march  of  men  that  started  in  slow  atoms  from  the 

sea, 

Fast  and  faster  strives  today  to  disappear  eternally; 
To  its  sea  cliff  sweeps.     And  then  like  all  those  others  must 

we  be? 

All  the  march  of  man,  the  millions  shouldered  nearer  to 

the  pit, 
Selling  life  for  threadbare  hours  of  toil  and  slumber,  slow, 

unfit, 
Starving,  sick,  blind,  shuddering,  to  the  black  tide  of  night 

submit. 

137 


138  SURI'll'AL 

At  that  sea  cliff's  edge  the  strong,  the  shrewd,  the  brave, 

the  tried,  the  true; 
All  that  urged  our  life  along,  the  souls  that  held  their  stars 

in  view; 
All  that  met  life  with  a  song  and  smiled  at  death,  must 

vanish  too. 

But  the  multitudes  are  building,  hour  by  hour  and  year  by 

year, 
Piers,  approaches,  to  the  pit,  the  ford,  the  strait.     They 

disappear. 
So  the  corals  conquered  ocean ;  so  men  bring  new  manhood 

near. 

Underground  and  under  ocean,  under  air  and  under  soul. 
Men  are  toiling,  building,  making  piers  and  stairs.     Kach 

human  mole 
Caged  in  caissons,  drives  his  tunnel  towards  the  spirit's 

path  and  goal. 

Men  are  toiling,  men  are  making  piers  and  bridges,  mo 
tors,  wings. 

Airships  soar  and  lift  our  eyes  and  hearts  to  dream  diviner 
things. 

Lonely  scouts  of  science  lead  us  toward  the  truth  tomorrow 
brings. 


SURVIVAL  139 

Here  a  surgeon,  here  a  chemist,  scales  and  holds  his  moun 
tain  height; 
Reaches  out  and  lifts  the  race  another  inch  from  death 

and  night: 

Dies  and  goes  to  scale  his  snow  peaks,  stars  and  mountain 
tops  of  light. 

Others  delving  deeper  still  in  souls  of  men  life's  essence 

see. 

Wireless  messages  of  love  they  code,  till  immortality 
Is  made  a  motor  state  of  mind  and  the  first  function  of  the 

free. 

New  York,  6-1-12 


HEART  OF  FIRE 

WE  made  a  fire  place  in  the  night, 
A  house  of  life  to  keep  us  warm. 
We  made  a  home  to  hold  our  light 
Through  hours  of  darkness,  cold  and  storm. 

And  there  before  our  hearth  we  sit. 
And  visions  there  and  dreams  of  gojd 
We  share,  while  sparks  like  seconds  flit, 
And  hour  by  hour  our  youth  grows  cold. 

So  hold  me  close  and  closer  here ; 
While  like  two  faggots,  one  clear  flame 
Our  moment  makes  immortal,  dear; 
And  radiant;  (For  this  cause  we  came, 

Out  of  the  atoms  where  the  stars 
Are  sparks  that  fade  and  night  is  long.) 
And  listen!  till  in  fiery  bars 
A  fallen  forest  leaps  to  song. 

Its  golden  lilt  and  lullaby 
Is  like  your  happy  heart,  that  clings 
To  glories  gleaned  in  days  gone  by, 
And  fancies  from  forgotten  springs: 

A  fallen  forest  of  the  years, 
We  heap  its  embers  here  tonight 
140 


HEART  OF  FIRE  141 

Till  in  the  heart  of  fire  appears 
All  loveliness  that  lives  in  light. 

It  leaps,  it  lures,  it  wreathes  your  lips 
With  spirit  kisses,  till  your  eyes 
Are  fires  that  laugh  at  love's  eclipse, — 
And  flaming  swords  of  Paradise. — 
Till  slowly  from  my  fingers  slips 
A  loveliness  that  never  dies. 

Pe conic,  4-21-13 


THE  LAST  VISTA 

OVER  the  hills  the  vista  lay 
Unexplored,  till  the  rain  today 
Woke  in  me  sombre  and  savage  unrest; 
Till  over  the  crest  of  the  hill  I  pressed. 

Camps  of  my  dreams  where  dawn  was  red 
On  a  world  of  wonder's  watershed, 
All  were  ended.     The  world  grew  dim 
In  a  valley  gray  and  a  daylight  grim. 

Life  is  a  limbo  of  lies,  I  thought, 
Where  the  bravest  vision  is  brought  to  naught ; 
And  we  follow  its  vistas  vague,  in  vain, 
Into  midnight's  mist  and  the  restless  rain. 

And  the  years  they  trick  us ;  and  one  by  one 
They  steal  our  dreams  till  the  last  is  done. 
So  I  doubted.     But  soon,  my  dear, 
Your  hands  on  my  eyelids  lay  warm  and  near. 

"  Follow  me  forward  and  fast,"  you  cried, 
"  And  look  when  I  let  you."     Open  eyed 
I  saw  your  lips  and  the  laughter  there, 
And  a  star  like  a  gem  that  graced  your  hair: 

That  a  hand  in  the  night  had  suddenly  set 
Barely  above  you.     Men  forget 
142 


THE  LAST  OF  VISTA  143 

The  rain  of  the  stars  where  night  and  day 
We  and  our  world  are  whirled  away; 

And  the  playmate  tender  and  tried  and  true; 
Death  and  your  lover,  who  comes  to  you, 
Leads  you  a  little,  and  lets  you  see 
The  best  of  your  dreams  that  is  yet  to  he. 

Nnv  York,  12-12-12 


SANCTUARY 

TO  her  empty  house  today 
Like  a  gray  deserted  shrine, 
From  Broadway  I  turn  away 
To  my  spirit's  bread  and  wine. 

Here  Boldini  painted  her 
When  the  century  began: 
Felt  one  honest  impulse  stir; 
For  one  hour  was  more  than  man. 

Mother,  he  came  close  to  you, 
Caught  the  truth  your  eyes  conceived, 
On  your  lips  its  summons  knew, 
For  one  hour  in  life  believed. 

I  have  sinned  to  snatch  success, 
And  my  heart  is  hard  and  old. 
All  my  millions  make  me  less, 
All  my  wisdom  makes  me  cold. 

I  shall  toil  until  the  end. 
One  by  one,  where  none  can  know, 
Wife  and  work,  and  faith  and  friend ; 
Last  of  all  your  love  shall  go. 

Darkness  ends  our  dying  eyes. 
In  my  weakness  here  I  cleave 
144 


SANCTUARY  145 

To  the  old  eternal  lies. 
For  one  hour  I  would  believe: 

Where  life  lauds  her  king  of  kings; 
There  your  spirit  on  her  knees, 
Whispers  still  eternal  things; 
Out  of  eyes  immortal  sees. 

Port  Said, 


MARKING  TIME 

LIFE,  my  lad,  is  one  long  wait,  after  another.  Soon 
or  late 

You'll  run  up  against  this  rock,  or  a  slimier,  slower 
shock, 

Mud  or  sand  that  clogs  the  Road.  If  you're  wise  you'll 
shift  your  load, 

Poetize,  philosophize.     One  each  weary  sinew  tries; 

Armor,  motor,  grit  or  brain.  One  sees  brother  souls  in 
pain, 

Fallen  from  life's  firing-line;  tells  himself,  "This  chance 
is  mine ; 

From  my  task  this  tithe  to  take;  in  another's  eyes  to 
wake 

Faith  reborn  and  manhood  stark,  mightier  than  the  shore 
less  dark." 

One  at  stragglers  swears;  or  sings;  cowards  back  to  tri 
umph  brings. 

Life,  my  dear,  is  dark  with  pain.  Light  casts  shadow. 
Heart  and  brain, 

Flesh  and  soul  through  travail  pangs  win  their  own. 
Your  city  clangs, 

God's  grim  anvil.  Hammers  beat,  to  the  tune  that  end 
less  feet 

Since  Creation's  dawn  began  to  repeat,  the  March  of 
Man; 


146 


MARKING  TIME  147 

Lilting  to  the  pulse  of  life.     Honor's  pilgrims,  Love  and 

Strife, 
Lead  our  leaders.     Here  we  stay,  while  they  wrestle  by 

the  way. 

Some  shall  stray.     Life's  soldier  halts.     Though  he  swears 

at  some  one's  faults, 
From  his  ranks  he  never  breaks  till  the  Word  the  column 

shakes, 
Or  a  bullet  brings  release.     Life  is  war.     The  paths  of 

peace 
Lead    through   pleasant   places  till   some   one   breaks   the 

truce.     And  still 
Through  the  love  outlasting  joy,  babes  are  born  and  girl 

and  boy 
God's  last  broken  ranks  renew.     And  the  black  battalions 

too 
Night  by  night  their  slaves  recruit.     Life's  a  fight,  or  lust 

and  loot. 

Life's  a  wave  that  comes  and  goes.     Life's  a  wind  that  lulls 

and  blows. 
Life's  breath,  a  laugh,  a  sigh.     Life's  a  journey  till  we 

die; 
Days  our  mile  posts,  white  or  gray;  nights  their  shadows. 

Now,  tod  ay , 


H8  MARKING  TIME 

Life's  an  endless  mountain  climb.     Though  you've  halted, 

marking  time; 

Lovelier  vistas  one  by  one,  larger  light  from  sun  to  sun, 
Older  soldiers  win   for  you.     Mist  and   murk  obscured 

your  view. 
Strangling  wreaths  of  battle  smoke.     That  was  nothing. 

Then  you  woke. 
Death  was  done.     For  life's  a  fight,  on   forever  up  to 

Light. 

New  York,  4-22-12 


THE  SOUL  HUNTER 

WF   sought   life  between   the  suns  and    ranging  far 
through  starless  night, 
Out  of  chaos  swarmed  to  form,  and  out  of  blindness  groped 

to  sight. 
We  went  seeking  through  the  ages.     Wasting  zeons  wore 

away 
One  by  one  the  husks  that  hid  the  heat  that  wanned  our 

wasting  clay ; 
Till  man,  naked,  from  his  caves  came  creeping  to  the  light 

of  dav. 


Life  through  travail  pangs  of  planets,  bore  his  body,  made 

it  strong; 
Out  of  weakness  wrought  his  wisdom.     Glacial  pressure 

hard  and  long 
Held  him  close  to  lava  fires  until  his  brain  blazed  forth  in 

light ; 
Till  red  fear  had  forced  him  forth  to  war  with  cold  and 

storm  and  night ; 
Fears  that  filled  his  eyes,  his  ears,  and  forced  his  shaking 

hands  to  fight. 

He  made  gods  of  fear  and  shadows;  gods  unsparing  and 

unknown ; 
Gods  of  greed  and  lust  and  hatred ;  gods  with  hearts  and 

hands  of  stone; 

140 


1 5o  THE  SOUL  HUNTER 

Gods  of  all  that  crushed  and  scourged  and  gnawed  without 
him  and  within ; 

Gods  of  sickness,  gods  of  sorrow,  gods  of  darkness  breed 
ing  sin ; 

Gods  of  life  that  thrust  him  forth  to  light,  a  larger  life  to 
win. 

Gods  of  tenderness,  that  failed  him ;  gods  of  hope  that 

heard  his  prayer ; 
Gods  of  pity  that  betrayed   him;  gods  of  love  that  let 

despair 
Leave  its  world  for  lost,  and  shrinking  in  the  night  hold 

one  sick  soul, 
As  a  mother  holds  one  child,  worth  all  the  world.     And 

while  he  stole 
For  a  slave's  slow  spirit  strength ;  all  men  were  marching 

to  their  goal. 

Miser  souls  one  altar  candle  watched  in  fear;  and  sud 
denly 

Life  that  lends  the  suns  to  space  and  sends  new  light  to 
eyes  that  see, 

Lifted  up  the  mind  of  man  to  stars  unborn  he  certifies; 

Set  men  sounding  life's  last  depth ;  and  taught  our  surgeons 
to  devise 

Scalpels  new  that  death's  dark  heart  dissect,  till  truth  is 
torn  from  lies. 


THE  SOUL  HUNTER  151 

Once  man  sought  his  soul  in  darkness  as  a  babe  is  born  in 
pain. 

Now  man's  manhood  leaps  to  light  like  search  lights  stab 
bing  storm  and  rain ; 

Reaching  out  to  wider  service ;  toiling  on  eternity ; 

Dying,  giving  something  living,  larger  life  more  fit  to  be ; 

To  one  soul  of  all  the  world,  that  cell  by  cell  from  hell 
goes  free. 

New  York,  7-11-14 


TOMORROW 

I  WOKE  from  dreams  of  him  today.     I  heard 
Beyond    these    four  close   cage-like   walls,   the   sum 
mons  of  a  bird 

Into  the  garden's  fragrance  and  the  breath  before  the 
dawn. 

Then  from  the  womb  of  morning  and  the  doors  of  death 
withdrawn, 

Another  life,  another  light,  leapt  forth  to  quicken  the 
earth  and  sky; 

Another  April  day  was  born  too  wonderful,  too  fair  to 
die. 

"  David  is  dead,"  they  told  me  yesterday. 

At  twilight  I  looked  out  at  death.  And  these  dim  hillsides 
gray 

Where  once  we  walked  in  splendor  were  like  ashes  of  the 
earth. 

Today  he  lives  in  me  once  more.  The  spring,  the  sun 
light's  birth 

Are  nature's  tongues  to  tell  me  that  his  life  could  not  be 
lost. 

And  then  the  birds  began  to  come.  How  many  leagues  of 
air  they  crossed, 

How  many  miles  of  land  and  seas  their  tireless  questing 
carried  here, 

Back  to  our  garden's  apple  trees  to  nest  and  breed  another 


year ! 


152 


TOMORROW  153 

David  has  gone  but  only  gone  before. 
Our  souls  arc  birds  of  passage  that  must  fly  forever  more 
Across  the  weary  seas  of  space  from  star  to  farther  star. 
And  shall  we  not  come  back  again  to  where  our  gardens 

are, 
Our  homes,  our  children's  children,  in  this  little  nest  of 

earth 
In  our  corner  of  God's  garden,  where  the  planets  leap  to 

birth 
Like  His  flowers  of  flame  forever;  and  where  the  meteors 

all 
Fade  like  petals  of  perfection  through  the  spirit's  spring 

and  fall? 

Had  he  only  left  me  children  —  but  the  children  of  his 

d  reams 
I  shall  bear  and  rear  and  care  for ;  till  our  home,  our  garden 

seems 

Just  a  tryst  of  life,  of  spirit  memories  that  never  die; 
Birds  of  passage  year  by  year  that  April's  radiance  glorify. 
Whether  comes  a  happier  lover,  larger  life  to  me  to  give; 
Or  at  heart  a  widow  ever,  I  in  other  children  live, 
All  he  was  and  willed,  undying,  I  shall  cherish  till  I  see 
Kyes  and  lips  that  laughing,  crying,   David's  love  bring 

back  to  me. 

S.S.  Friedrich  dcr  Grosse,  9-4-12 


PRACTICAL  PEOPLE 

YOU  have  lost  beauty  and  delight  and  worlds  of  won 
der  wild  and  real. 
You  have  forgotten  everything  the  child  and  savage  see 

and  feel. 

You  wrap  your  thoughts  in  threadbare  words.     The  blur 
ring  types  of  your  machine 

Your  feelings  faint  in  faded  patterns  print,  your  starless 
nights  between. 


For  truth  eternal,  naked,  new  as  sunrise  or  a  baby's  smile, 
Your  hearts  too  hard  to  tremble  to,  hide  in  some  dusty 

letter  file. 
Your  minds  are  mirrors  of  the  streets,  your  eyes  in  ledgers 

lost,  survey, 
Like  columns  to  be  added  through,  year  after  year,  each 

sordid  day. 

Your  feet  in  coffins  black  have  died  to  the  fresh  touch  of 

turf  and  dew, 
Your  hands  that  here  typewriters  plied  too  long,  lose  hold 

of  life.     To  you 
Joy   that  with  jewels   threads  each   hour,   that   makes  a 

miracle  supreme 
Of  every  weed  and  wayside  flower,  is  dead  as  yesterday's 

dead   dream. 


154 


PRACTICAL  PEOPLE  155 

When  comes  a  voice  to  vitalize  blood  that  o'er  mountains 

used  to  run? 
What  vision  serves  to  quicken  eyes  that  saw  huge  seas 

that  drowned  the  sun? 
What   message  stirs  the  ears  that   heard   the  sea  peaks 

splintered,  undismayed? 
What  warmth  shall  light  the  embers  cold  that  into  silence 

fall  and  fade? 

You  shun  the  sunlight  who  the  air  of  heaven  in  houses 

dark  defile, 
You  have   forgotten  gladness  there;  to  run,   to  wrestle, 

shout  and  smile. 
Adventure   clamors  at   your   gates.     You   shut   her   out 

where  comfort  crawls. 
You  hump  your  back  above  your  books.     You  waste  your 

lives  in  rotting  walls. 

For  you  have  made  of  printer's  ink  a  serpent  in  whose 

paper  coils 
Your  souls  are  crushed.     You  hide  away  the  wealth  that 

stifles,  wastes,  and  spoils. 
All  heaven  and  earth  you  use  today  to  drown  yourselves 

in  dollar  bills. 
When  will  you  ever  stop  to  play  with  morning  marching 

up  the  hills? 


156  PRACTICAL  PEOPLE 

When  will  your  bloodless  spirits  guess  the  wonder  in  one 

grain  of  sand, 
One  spark  of  fire;  the  tenderness  in  one  girl's  smile,  one 

child's  warm  hand ; 
The  rapture  in  one  robin's  song,  one  rose,  one  moonrise 

after  rain? 
You  who  to  blackness  here  belong,  can  souls  like  yours  be 

born  again  ? 

Peconic,  N.   Y.t  7-22-14 


r  or  LAND 

THl. RE'S   a   little   Jew    cash    girl    that    comes   and 
stares 

At  my  toys  for  little  near-millionaires, 
Motor  cars,  battleships,  aeroplanes, 
That  you  wind  with  a  key,  every  day  that  it  rains. 
When  she  looks  at  the  dolls  it's  like  saying  your  prayers. 

Mimi  from  Paris  the  star  of  the  show 
Squeaks  out  her  name  when  one  squeezes  her,  so. 
Now  if  I  was  one  of  that  high  brow  bunch 
Of  better  than  thou  dames,  I've  got  a  hunch 
I'd  have  bought  her  for  Becky  a  long  time  ago. 

I've  got  a  snap  shot.     Say,  wouldn't  she  be 
Fuller  of  joy  than  a  bird  on  a  tree? 
Maybe  the  tips  of  her  toes  wouldn't  sing. 
There  was  a  kiddie  got  hers  here  last  spring; 
Kissed  the  doll  blind.     Then  she  tried  to  kiss  me. 

Now  it's  December  and  hell's  here  to  stay 
Three  blessed  weeks.     Folks  ain't  Christians  today. 
People  like  sheep  keep  forgetting  the  Child  ; 
Till  the  mob  starts  to  make  a  good  and  runs  wild ; 
And  the  rush  in  our  aisles  would  scare  any  subway. 


157 


158  TOY  LAND 

Heaven's  a  fairy  tale.     Last  night  I  dreamed 

There   was   toyland    in    heaven    where   star   drop   lights 

gleamed 

On  women,  that  prayed  for  girl  babies  and  boys, 
The  way  little  Becky  wants  dollies  and  toys. 
There  were  sales-lady  angels  —  so  silly  it  seemed. 

Peconic,  7-31-14 


PJIN 


THE  CAXCER  WARD 

THEY  nurse  their  bullets  in  their  breasts  where 
babies'  blissful  lips  have  hung. 

On  checks  that  lovers'  lips  caressed,  the  livid  wounds  of 
life  lie  bare. 

In  eyes  that  harbored  happiness,  where  pain  has  long  out 
lived  despair, 

The  last  dumb  terror  of  the  brute  that  lurks  and  wakes 
and  slumbers  there, 

Draws  near  to  death  and  cannot  die ;  and  murders  prayer. 
You  too  were  young. 


Poets  have  sung  to  you  perhaps.     Your  lover's  prayers 

you  once  disdained. 
But  you  were  pure  and  pitiful  and  perfect  as  the  drifted 

snow 
That  hides  a  little  garden  plot,  the  ward's  last  window 

far  below, 
Where  winter  prunes  his  roses  red.     And  you  were  born 

the  brute  to  know 
That  masters  man,  and  makes  of  him  a  spirit  stained,  that 

earth  has  chained. 

A  drunkard  beat  you  on  the  breast.     A  saint  has  touched 

your  finger  tips. 
A  hero's  hands  your  heart  have  pressed.     For  you  have 

lived  and  you  have  learned 
161 


162  THE  CANCER  WARD 

Of  joy  and  pain  to  savor  life.     And  you  have  languished, 

you  have  yearned, 
And  you  have  thrilled  through  ecstasies.     And  you  have 

snatched  at  joys  unearned. 
And  you  till  dust  to  dust  returned,  have  smiled  with  true 

and  trembling  lips. 

Brave  heart  behind  the  sheeted  screen:  dull  lives  that  still 
to  ashes  fall : 

Flesh  where  one  cinder  eating  all,  one  throbbing  ache  for 
all  you  lost, 

Alone  alive,  forswears  the  prayers  a  nursing  sister  breathes 
acrost 

A  gulf  as  great  as  Dives  saw:  the  fire  of  life  your  em 
bers  cost ; 

You  who  were  rich  and  radiant:  you  who  like  Lazarus 
lost  all. 

No  heaven  hereafter  waits  for  you.     In  life  alone  is  your 

reward. 
But  beauty  wavers   in  one  smile  that   meets  the  weary 

watcher's  eyes, 
And  loveliness  may  waken  love  as  strong  as  life  that  never 

dies. 
A  second's  sick  surcease  from  pain  has  made  a  poignant 

paradise. 


THE  CANCER  WARD  163 

And  out  of  horror  springs  a  hope;  and  healing  brings 
from  things  abhorred. 

The  armies  of  the  nations  march:  the  singers  of  the  na 
tions  see; 

The  surgeons  of  the  nations  hear  in  pain  a  life  that 
labors  long; 

Till  master  minds  of  science  find  its  antitoxins  sure  and 
strong: 

Till  suffering  a  symphony  is  made,  a  mighty  marching 
song: 

Till  from  the  spirit's  agonies  is  born  the  better  day  to  be. 

Paris,  5-//-/J 


CHRIST  IN  THE  JSYLUM 

THE   long   excursion   train   has  stopped    and   slowly 
through  the  snow, 
Through  Sunday  morning's  holiness  of  woods  and  hills 

they  go; 
The  black  procession  of  the  poor,   to  see  their  sick   to- 

day. 

Some    carry    tawdry    Christmas   gifts.     Some    dumb    lips 
try  to  pray. 


For  Christ  has  come  to   Hades  here,   to  herd  with   the 

insane, 
Since  we  evict  Him  from  the  Church  and  crown   Him 

from  the  brain. 
Our  modern  minds  His  faith  forget.     But  here  are  hearts 

as  old 
As  hunger,  pain  and  horror,  and  hopelessness  and  cold. 

The  winter  sun  between  the  bars  as  merciless  as  time 
Betrays  the  faces  marred  and  scarred,  reveals  the  years' 

gray  grime; 
The  women  old  that  God  forgot,  that  man  has  wasted 

here, 
The  faces  of  defeat  and  death,  the  eyes  of  endless  fear. 

One   plucks   a   rose   to   pieces.     One  stooping,   squinting 
crone 

164 


CHRIST  IN  THE  ASYLUM  165 

Who  wears  a  rag  bag  on  her  back,  grins  at  a  grama- 
phone, 

One  hugs  a  squalid  doll  and  whines,  and  watches  hours 
that  were, 

When  laughter  and  all  loveliness  her  children  shared 
with  her. 

O  mad  Madonna  of  the  slums  that  some  one  loved  and 

lost; 
Gray  ghosts  and   failures  of  us  all:  O  souls  success  has 

cost; 
There  runs  a  whisper  through  the  wards  to  lighten  lives 

forlorn. 
Today  of  some  dead  prostitute  a  child  to  us  is  born. 

Today  the  foul,  the  piteous,  the  shyster  and  the  shrew, 
With  remnants  of  life's  bargain  sales  make  offerings  to 

you. 
They  fill  this  fester  spot  with  flowers.     They  make  their 

morgue  a  shrine. 
For    they   are   pilgrims   poor   of    love,    that    lost    is   still 

divine. 

King's  Park,  L.   /.,    12-28— 12 


MILL  CHILDREN 

Wi:   have  forgotten   how   to  sing.     Our   laughter    is 
a  godless  thing:  listless  and  loud  and  shrill  and 
sly. 
We  have  forgotten  how  to  smile.     Our  lips,  our  voices 

are  too  vile.     For  each  of  us,  a  living  lie, 
Each  old,  each  cold,  each  carnal  face  is  childhood's  death 
and  black  disgrace.     We  all  are  dead  before  we  die. 

Our  mothers'  mothers  made  us  so.  The  fathers  that  we 
never  know,  in  blindness  and  in  wantonness, 

Caused  us  to  come  to  question  you.  What  is  it  that  you 
others  do,  that  profit  so  by  our  distress? 

If  all  your  millions  made  the  mill,  why  is  it  then  that 
never  still  it  murders  us,  both  day  and  night? 

You  and  your  little  children  sleep.  We  and  our  mothers 
vigil  keep.  You  cheated  us  of  all  delight. 

Ere  our  sick  spirits  came  to  birth  you  made  our  fair 
and  fruitful  earth,  a  nest  of  pestilence  and  blight. 

Your  black  machines  are  never  still,  and  hard,  relent 
less  as  your  will,  they  card  us  like  the  cotton  waste. 

And  flesh  and  blood  more  cheap  than  they,  they  seize  and 
eat  and  shred  away,  to  feed  the  fever  of  your  haste. 

For  we  are  waste  and  shoddy  here,  who  know  no  god,  no 
faith  but  fear;  no  happiness,  no  hope  but  sleep. 
166 


MILL  CHILDREN  167 

Half  imbecile  and  half  obscene  we  sit  and  tend  each  tense 
machine,  too  sick  to  sigh,  too  tired  to  weep, 

Until  the  tortured  end  of  day,  when  fevered  faces  turn 
away,  to  see  the  stars  from  blackness  leap. 

Hardest  of  all  is  this  to  bear,  that  somewhere  in  the  upper 
air,  there  may  be  heaven  we  never  know. 

Beyond  the  blackness  children  may  from  dreams  of  love 
look  up  to-day  to  hear  their  mothers  whisper  low. 

But  here  the  mill's  unbending  roar,  calls  us  and  curses 
more  and  more,  God's  curse  on  men  who  know 
Him  not. 

And  night  and  morn  to  the  Most  High,  we  march 
God's  conscripts  born  to  die,  till  love  at  last 
makes  bright  our  lot: 

Till  in  the  shapes  of  filth  and  fear  that  you  have  starved 
and  stolen  here,  you  find  the  children  God  for 
got. 

Peconic, 


GUTTER  SLIME 

\T7E  are  your  wounds. 

We  are  your  fevers  and  festering  sores,  and  your 

failures  and  faults; 
Sick   in   field   hospitals,   stragglers,   camp   followers   foul, 

where  life's  long  column  halts; 
Where  your  cities  are  camps,  treasure  heaps  of  the  ages 

you  looted,  of  earth  that  your  strong  men  despoil. 
And    you   sit   on    their   summits.     We   creep   round    the 

edges  and   snarl   at  your  sentinels.     Starving  we 

toil. 

We  are  defeat. 

We  are  the  danger,  the  germs  in  the  street,  in  the  food 

that  you  eat  at  your  ease. 
We  are  disease  that  is  lying  in  wait  for  the  weak,  for 

your  children.     We  faint  and  we  freeze. 
We   drink   and   we    fall   in   the   gutters.     We   crawl  .in 

the  gutters.     We  crawl  and  we  fall  where  you 

left  us  to  crawl  and  fall. 
And  the  drink  and  the  drugs  that  you  sell  us  shall  surfeit 

you  too  till  you  pay  for  us  all. 

We  are  despair. 

We    are    past   prayer.     We    are    horror    that    hopelessly 

shudders  and   dies  in  the  dark; 
Hunger  and   hate  and   black  shame  that  comes  back   to 

you  making  its  mark, 
168 


GUTTER  SLIME  169 

Blasting  your  sons;   the  sick  pain  of  dumb  beasts,  and 

strong  sorrow  gone  mad. 
We  are  your  weakness  you  waste.     Shall  we  ever  look 

up  at  last,  learn  to  be  glad? 

We  are  your  goal. 

For  your  soul  that  you  starve,  when  you  starve  us  shall 

cease  to  be  blind, 
And  your  mind  that  you  madden  with  haste,  something 

mightier  shall  find 
Than  the  money  that  crushes  us  down,  that  distorts,  that 

shall  cripple  you  too, 
Till  you   learn  to  believe  in  the  least  of  us,  serving  a 

gospel  made  new. 
We  are  your  God  in  the  germ,  till  we  suffer  and  struggle 

with  you, 
Out  of  the  slime  to  make  soul. 

Pfconic, 


CAMP  FOLLOWERS 

we    were   as   you   were,    children,    cherished, 
prayed  for,  born  to  bless; 
Bought  with  pain  and  labor  lasting,  white  as  April  snow 

is  white ; 

Fragrant  as  a  bed  of  roses,  living  lips  of  happiness 
Moulded    by    a    mother's    kisses;    eyes    of    laughter    and 

delight. 

But   that   beauty   faded   early   as   the   snow  flakes    in    the 
night. 

Once  we  were  as  you  were,  women,  beasts  of  burden  for 

the  race; 
Slaves  by   caves   and   cords   imprisoned   till   our   masters 

dared  to  sleep. 
So  we  bore  them  stronger  warriors,  found  a  surer  hiding 

place. 
And  the  flame  of  life  flashed  upward  and  the  ape  forgot 

to  creep, 
And  the  mothers  of  our  mothers  learned  at  last  to  love 

and  weep. 

Once  we  walked  in  folk  migrations,  once  with  emperors 
\\  e  rode ; 

Mistresses  of  mighty  monarchs  ordering  the  world's  ad 
vance. 

Once  we  taught  all  art  to  triumph,  in  your  temples  we 
abode. 

170 


CAMP  FOLLOWERS  171 

Once  we  smiled   at  minnie-singers,  ordered   love  to  lift 
his  lance, 

Setting  armored   squadrons  spurring  at  a  whisper  or  a 
glance. 

Once  we  were  like  flames  devouring  flinging  men  across 

the  sea, 
Licking   gold    from    Montezumas;   gold    that   we   divide 

today 
With  the  men  that  death  subduing  share  their  spoils  with 

you  and  me  — 
You   the   nun,   the  saint,   the  matron ;  you   the  wife   he 

hides  away; 
You  his  body  bearing  children;  I  his  mind  to  mount  and 

play. 

You  may  pray  in  guarded  houses.     We  go  following  his 

camps — 
For  us  both  he  fights  and   triumphs.     We  have  shared 

his  sorest  need. 
Through   the  deserts  pioneering,   where  defeat  his  ashes 

stamps, 
Still  his  farthest  watch  fires  sharing  we  shall  nurse  with 

hands  that  bleed 
Sinking  flames  of  life  that  falter.     Deeper  in  his  heart 

we  read. 


172  CAMP  FOLLOWERS 

You  despise  us,  you  abhor  us.     But  you  copy  us  today, 
Wear  our  dresses,  learn  our  dances,  paint  your  flesh  that 

we  despise, 
Like  our  own.     In   turn  your  children  one  by  one  we 

lure  away. 
And  each  lonely  lost  street  walker  of  the  nations  in  our 

eyes 
Is  a  sentinel  of  heaven's  host  advancing  to  the  skies. 

New   York,    1-15-12 


THE  BREAD  LINE 

WHKN   winter  has  besieged   the   world   with   want 
and  storm  and   snow, 
And  hail  like  bullets  sweeps  the  street,  and  winds  begin 

to  blow 
Like  roaring  ranks  of   ruin   loud   at   twilight:   Corporal 

Cold 
And  Captain   Hunger  line  us  up,  sick  boys  and  men  as 

old 
As  the  dead  hopes  that  once  we  hugged,  the  ghosts  of 

loves  we  sold. 


For  some  of  us,  the  happy  ones,  this  is  the  last  review; 
The   last    inspection   of   a   life.     This   brother,    man,    is 

you; 
This  hulk   that  coughs  his  heart,   his  hope,  his  heaven, 

his  hell  away. 
For  you  whose  god  lies  lapped   in   lace,  whose  harlot's 

hands  betray 
All    manhood ;    here,    when   midnight   strikes,    tonight    is 

judgment  day. 

For  cold  shall  search  us  pore  by  pore;  each  cell  that  sin 

has  tried, 
That  pain  and   fear  and  sickness  scourged,   that  hunger 

crucified. 

It  stiffens  us.     In  rigid  ranks  we  shuffle,  marking  time, 

173 


i74  THE  BREAD  LINE 

Till  from  your  church  where  Christ  is  cold,  there  sounds 

a  silver  chime. 
Till  one  by  one,  our  rations  drawn,  the  slum  takes  back 

its  slime. 


But  even  so  for  some  of  us  whose  souls  are  sinking  here, 
There  comes  a  glow  that  heats  the  heart  through  frozen 

hours  of  fear. 
A  vision  floats  and  forms  for  us  through  bar  room  fumes, 

and  where 
Your  coppers  club  us  into  holes  where  sewage  fills  the 

air, 
Where  vice  and  vermin  eat  us  up;  you  too  who  drove  us 

there. 

We    see    you    on    your   sick    beds    then,    your    sons    and 

daughters  too, 
Drawing  near  to  fear,  to  midnight,  to  the  Devil's  dread 

review. 
And    you    rave   and   cry    for   rations,   drops   of   drugs,   a 

woman's  tears 
As    slowly    strained,    lost    words   of    love.     That    vision 

disappears 
While  we  shuffle  through  the  snow  drifts  and  the  seconds 

slow  as  years. 


THE  BREAD  LINE  175 

For  the  armies  of  Messiah  march  unresting  day  and  night, 
Out  of  darkness,  from  the  jungles,  from  your  cities  up 

to  light. 
Out  of  hospitals,  from  sweat  shops,  out  of  dive  and  mine 

and  mill, 
Spent  and  wasted  we  are  marching  past  the  last  frontiers 

of  will, 
Where  the  last  grim  Surgeon  sifts  us;  where  you  shrink 

and  shudder  still. 

S.S.  Chicago,  4-15-13 


THE  LOCK-STEP 

THERE'S   the  warden's  little  toddler  at  a  window 
in  the  sun, 
Looking  down  and  laughing  at  us  as  we  pass  him  one 

by  one. 
And  I  wonder  if  he  wonders  why  we  never  stride  or  run. 


There  are  tears  and  cries  and  anguish  when  a  baby  comes 

to  birth; 
When  he  breaks  his  way  from  prison.     He  may  murder 

all  your  mirth, 
He  may  kill  your  best  and  dearest,  yet  you  yield  him  all 

the  earth. 

And  he  stumbled  as  we  stumbled.     And  he  trembles  as 

he  tries 
To  come  closer   to  his  mother,   till   his  eyes  adore  her 

eyes. 
And  you  lift  him  when  he's  crawling  till  he's  looking  at 

the  skies. 

If  he's  soiled  and  hurt  and  hungry,  he  is  dearer  to  her 

then, 
Dearer  since  in   her  he  suffers.     We  were  babies  more 

than  men, 
And  we  blundered  forth  to  freedom  till  you  beat  us  back 

again. 

176 


THE  LOCK-STEP  177 

You  are  children.     You  are  cruel.     Yesterday  you  had 

to  crawl. 
Out   of   mud   the  ages  made   us.     And   today  a  bar,   a 

wall, 
Is  the  only  thing  that  damns  us  and  divides  us  from  you 

all. 

We  are  conscripts  of  consumption  and  perdition,  drawn 

by  lot, 
That  you  drill  and  waste  and  murder  in  your  barracks 

black  that  rot. 
We  are  fear  you  make  your  fetish,  wounded  souls  your 

faith  forgot. 

Make   your    prisons    of    tomorrow    a    white    hospital    of 

life. 
Here  today  is  Satan's  cloister.     Here  you  sharpen  every 

knife. 
Here  you  hide  the  black  byproducts  of  your  greed  and 

lust  and  strife. 

You  go  limping  through  a  lockstep  long  as  ours.     But 

this  we  know: 
Hopes   forlorn  of  life  go  creeping  till   its  black   Bastile 

shall  go, 
Till  our  bodies  fill  the  ditch,  our  wrongs  its  walls  shall 

overthrow. 


178  THE  LOCK-STEP 

And  the  warden's  baby  watching  us  is  wiser  far  than 
you 

For  he  knows  light  kindles  light.  He  smiles  and  some 
of  us  smile  too. 

For  he  knows  that  life  is  lovely — life  our  murdered  boy 
hood  knew. 

Los  Angeles,  13-24-13 


IN  HOSPITAL 

T3KCAUSE  my  mother's  blood  was  thin, 
-^  My  father,  life's  young  spendthrift,  I, 
The  child  of  sickness  old  as  sin, 
Here  year  by  year  in  prison  lie. 

We  have  a  chapel,  white  and  still, 
A  nunnery  whose  litanies 
In  pain's  long  service  swell  and  thrill ; 
And  I  am  weary,  Lord,  of  these. 

Pain  was  my  sister.     Silently 
I  hugged  her  to  my  baby  breast, 
Until  I  learned  her  smile  to  see 
As  closer  still  her  child  she  pressed. 

Today  her  fingers  come  and  go. 
They  numb  my  pulses,  as  the  night 
Weighs  down  the  noon.     I  never  know 
The  wonders  of  your  world  of  light. 

I  see  the  sheeted  bodies  pass, 
To  life's  last  altar,  or  the  place 
WTiere  the  white  surgeons  say  their  mass, 
And  break  life's  body  for  the  race. 

This  is  our  sacrifice  for  fear 
And  blindness.     I  have  lived  to  see 
179 


8o  IN  HOSPITAL 

How  some  of  us  must  suffer  here 
To  make  tomorrow's  millions  free: 

Till  death's  last  anaesthetic  gray 
Shall   slowly  drift  and   dissipate, 
Till  unseen  surgeons  lift  away 
All  pain,  and  crooked  souls  are  straight. 

PC conic, 


THE  OLD 

PARIS  lay  in  the  moonlight,   Paris  asleep  and  white. 
Till  across  the  court  of  my  hotel  I  heard  a  cough 

in  the  night. 
Horrible,   hoarse,   and   choking,   like  the  voice  of  death 

that  lags 
When  the  mind  is  blind,  and  the  soul  is  sick,  and  furled 

its  battle   flags: 

And   life   is  a  slow  surrender,  and   the   flesh   is  torn   to 
rags. 

Life  is  a  slow  surrender  at  last  for  every  one. 

They  steal  the  light  of  day  from  us,  and  the  splendor 

of  the  sun. 
And  each  breath  that  we  draw,  draws  nearer,  coughing 

or  crooning  slow, 
The  old,  old  songs  that  we  used  to  sing  in  the  sunlight 

long  ago, 
To  the  darkness,  and  the  silence,  and  the  end  that  none 

can  know. 

Life  is  a  slow  surrender  to  the  legions  of  the  years: 
All  that  we  worked  and  wept  for  once,  at  last  the  urge 

of  tears. 
Strength  of  the  hand,  and  muscles  like  armies  drilled  to 

die, 
All  melodies  that  fill  the  ear,  all  flowers  that  thrill  the 

eye, 

181 


182  THE  OLD 

Beauty  of  waves  and  women,  noon ;  midnight  and  morn 
ing's  sky: 

Scent  of  pale  violets  in  the  woods,  of  new  mown  hay  and 

brine, 

All  savor  of  our  daily  bread,  all  wonder  waked  in  wine, 
Warmth    of   our    children's   kisses,    clasping   of   clinging 

hands: 
All  these  Thy  gifts,  we  give  Thee,  Lord,  who  learn  Thy 

law's  commands, 
Till  sick  and  old  and  shivering  the  soul  a  beggar  stands. 

We   lay   upon   Thy   altar,    Lord,   a   friend's   last   loving 

smile, 

A  love's  last  letter,  memories  of  gold  that  gleam  awhile, 
Of   all   things   glad   and   tender,   of  all   things   fair   and 

true. 

Life  is  a  slow  surrender  of  all  we  dream  and  do: 
Till    the   last   pale   embers   smoulder   cold,    and    the   last 

frail  hour  wears  through. 

Life  that  to  this  year's  living  devotes  each  spring  gone 

by 

That  gave  us  all,  who  giving  our  lives,  at  rest  shall  lie: 
Life  is  a  slow  surrender  of  all  our  outworks.     Still 


THE  OLD  183 

We  hold  one  citadel  of  thought,  whose  starving  souls 
still  thrill 

To  triumphs  new,  new  battles  fought  by  thought  im 
mortal  wrought  of  will. 

Peconic,  6-6-14 


BLIND 

YOU    look    at    shadows   all    your    lives,    a    world    of 
shadows.     Once   I   saw 
The  shifting  surfaces  of  things,  the  masks  that  men  and 

women  wear. 
The  rags  of  beauty  long  outworn,  whose  flesh  has  failed, 

where  greed  and  care 

Have  made  all  little  things  of  life  the  sordid  letters  of 
its  law. 

Once  all  was  agony.  The  light  like  life  itself  went  day 
by  day. 

Blind  panic  died.  I  tried  to  make  a  million  records,  could 
not  choose 

Out  of  the  world  that  slipped  from  me,  the  last  to  see, 
the  last  to  loose. 

Till  like  an  abscess  lanced,  the  worst  with  the  last  day 
light  went  away. 

Since  I   had  lost  myself  in  light  and   freedom  that  you 

waste  as  well; 
In    my    black    prison   cell    for    life    I    stumbled,    groping 

maimed  and  sore. 
I  wrecked  my  soul  against  the  wall.     I  went  on  falling 

through  the  floor 
Into   the  void   whose   heart   reveals   that   heaven   is   here 

as  near  to  hell, 

184 


BLIND  185 

As  light  and  shadow.     I   was  lost.     I  clutched  at  what 

was  nearest.     Long 
I  clung  to  kindness,  to  the  hands  whose  clasp  brought 

back  my  friends  to  me. 
I   felt  the  love  I  once  forgot,  I  was  too  close  to,  once, 

to  see. 
I  heard  it  till  I  knew  at  last,  each  word  of  welcome  was 

a  song. 

So  I   began  to  give  myself.     Once  I   had  taken,  wasted 

all. 
Since   I   had  nothing  else  to  give,   I   gave  my  greetings 

snatched  from  pain, 
And  trembling  smiles,  till  people  brought  their  trials  to 

me.     And  once  again 
I  have  a  world  for  working  in.     Today  it  claims  me  when 

I  call. 


We  see  the  stars  at  night  alone.     Its  shadows  pale  illusion 

sends. 
From  sunrise  to  the  dusk  of  day,  to  veil  all  vital  things. 

At  last 
From  my  close  cloister  of  despair,  from  one  gray,  wasted 

world  I  passed, 
Into  another  where  I  sec  the  spirit  faces  of  my  friends. 


1 86  BLIXD 

The  soul  of  beauty  still  is  mine;  that  mothers  feel  but 

cannot  say, 
When  first  their  first-born's  lips  they  press;  like  sound 

beyond  all  symphonies. 
And  all  the  awful  vast  of  space  is  lit  with  living  stars 

like  these, 
Till  all  the  pain  that  mars  His  face  dies  as  God's  shadows 

die  today. 

Pe conic,  7-14-14 


PEOPLE 


COMMUTERS 

THE  western  window  of  their  world  was  open  wide 
to  heaven  today, 
Till  eight  o'clock  slammed  down   the  shade  and   trains 

went  whirling  them  away. 
The  morning  papers  poisoned  dawn,  with  rape  and  murder, 

greed  and  lies. 
They  saw  the  city  from   the   ferry;  the  altars  high  of 

sacrifice, 
Where  beauty  strives  with  steel   and   granite,   and   men 

of  slime  make  merchandise. 

New  hopes  and  fair  ambitions  there  were  written  round 

their  lips  in  light, 
And   strangers  marched   as  brothers,  where  young  loves 

touched  finger  tips  at  sight. 
They  saw  a  road  of  glory  laid  across  the  tide-way  for 

an  hour. 
They   vanished    in    the   shadows   slowly    where   cliffs   of 

windows  blindly  tower, 
Where   greed's  slow   ambuscades   are   lurking,   and    men 

must  pay  their  price  for  power. 

Blithe  feet  on  furtive  errands  went  and  gracious  fingers 

ruin  wrote. 
From   discontent   to  discontent   they   grew.     Harsh   note 

on  harsher  note, 

189 


190  COMMUTERS 

The  ferry  whistles  through  the  fog  outroared  the  clamor 

of  the  cars. 
Young  eyes  grew  sordid  and  despairing  and  eager  spirits 

chafed  their  bars, 
While  men  and  masters  of  tomorrow  built  up  their  city 

towards  the  stars. 


Day  after  day  and  year  on  year  they  were  besieged  until 

they  died, 
By  office  shadows,  by  the  streets  where  life  is  cursed  and 

crucified. 
And    boyhood's   dreams   were   smeared   with    mud.     One 

gave  her  youth  and  ten  their  tears; 
Life  seemed  to  some  a  barren  service.     And  they  were 

starved  of  prayers  and  fears, 
That  women  for  their  children  cherish  who  triumph  o'er 

their  iron  years. 

The  charge  wins  home  within  our  walls,   and  catapult 

and  mangonel 
On    trembling   platforms   creak    and    strain,   around    our 

island  citadel. 
Like    haggard    women    once    in    Greece   whose    bleeding 

fingers  wrought  amain, 
From  their  own  hair  the  bowstring's  plaiting  while  boys 

snatched  arrows  from  the  slain 


COMMUTERS  i«ji 

That  dying,  fighting  men  might  glory  in  Athens  born  in 
light  again: 

Their  millions  pale  to  battle  march  when  daylight  ends 

the  truce  of  God. 
His   splendor   through    His   loopholes   see   at   dawn    and 

twilight.     Heads  that  nod 
At  noon  in  languor,  may  not  know  the  charges  and  the 

counter-calls. 
But   deathlessness  is   in   their  dreaming  and  strength   in 

every  tear  that  falls, 
To  stay  this  city's  soul,  that  kneeling  from  battle  builds 

up  reeling  walls. 

S.S.  Shidzuoka  Maru,   1-18-14 


NINE  O'CLOCK 

YOU    housed    and    hid    corruption:    in    darkness   bred 
disease, 

You  laid  upon  the  children  your  lusts  and  infamies. 
You    starved    them    and    you    cheated    their   lives   of   all 

delight. 

You  made  the  air  of  heaven  a  sickness  in  the  night. 
You  blinded  them  to  beauty,  their  sunshine  stole  away, 
And  still  the  children  come  to  school  to  make  you  young 
today. 


And   some   are   dumb    to   gladness,   and    some   forget   to 

smile, 
And   some  are  vile  and  cruel,   and   some  are  tame   and 

vile. 

And  half  of  them  are  hungry,  and  faces  foul  and  gray, 
Small   ghosts   of   lives   no   woman    loves   go   with    them. 

They  obey 

The  old  primeval  evils,  the  old  primeval  pains 
That   bore   them   and    begat   them,    that    fester    in    their 

veins. 

They  are  your  want  and  weaknesses,  the  children  of  your 

greed, 
The  price  you  pay   for  pleasure.     By  their  sorrow   you 

succeed. 

Their  faces  are  your  failures.     In  filth  and  gutter  slime 

192 


NINE  O'CLOCK  193 

You  slip  with  them  and  stumble  through  by-\vays  black 

of  time 

Whose  fever  and  infection  you  harbor  in  your  haste. 
And    you    that   cheapen   seconds   here,    tomorrow's   seons 

waste. 

But  out  of  evil  surges  an  urge  to  better  things, 
And   in   their  cries  and  curses  a  living  spirit  sings. 
And  life  that  in  the  lifetime  of  stars  we  learn  to  weigh, 
Has  made  this  school  a  block  house  of  freedom  for  to- 

day. 
And  here  the  children  herding  from  the  terrors  in  the 

night 
Look  up  and  see  one  loophole  that  leads  at  last  to  light. 

Not  yet,  life's  laboratories  and  armories  of  will, 

Our  schools  may  win  our  war  for  us,   for  life  to  live 

must  kill. 

And  still  in  black  battalions,  the  children  passing  by, 
Must  struggle  through  these  streets  of  shame  where  life 

to  live  must  die. 
For  this  their  mothers  bore  them,  our  raw  recruits  who 

are 
The  armies  of  the  broken   road   we  build   from  star  to 

star. 

Los  Angeles,  11-4-13 


THE  WIRETAPPED 

OUT  of  the  dark  when  the  streets  are  still,  through 
a  city  that  sleeps,  in  its  hive  of  stone, 
When  night  is  a  smoke,  where  its  swarms  are  laid ; 
Then  rises  a  sound  like  a  hammer  of  hoofs  on  the  trail 

of  the  wires,  a  heart  that's  afraid, 
Pounding  in  terror,  lost  and  alone. 

And  it  knocks  and  it  knocks,  like  a  soul  that  seeks,  break 
ing  the  locks,  and  the  bounds  of  space, 

To  leap  to  its  own;  till  all  longing  dies. 

And  quick  as  the  click  of  a  key,  somewhere  I  can  see 
despair  in  a  woman's  eyes, 

In  the  letters  of  death  that  my  ringers  trace. 

Out  of  the  night  where  the  ether  thrills,  and  the  heart 

of  hills  is  a  deathless  dance, 
Of  atoms  that  pulse  to  the  lift  of  life, 
There  comes   an   echo  of   worlds  at  war,   of   light   and 

darkness  locked  in  strife, 
Sweating  the  scum  of  circumstance. 

A  child  is  born.     And  I  watch  by  day,  and  into  a  slum 

while  a  gambler  waits; 
I  relay  word  of  a  horse  that  wins, 
From  a  stock  exchange,  where  the  greed  of  a  race  places 

its  bets  on  a  nation's  sins. 
I  preach  the  price  of  your  lost  estates. 

194 


THE  W1RETAPPER  195 

My  faith  is  filtered.     No  longer  alone  I   knock  on  the 

wall  of  a  cell  in  the  night. 
My  laboratory  of  life  is  stirred 
By  the  deep  sea  cables  and  wires,  and  the  nerves  of  a 

sense  that  grows  till  all  sound  is  heard, 
Like  the  lenses  serving  our  larger  sight. 

For  once  at  college  something  I  saw,  a  strange  machine 

with  its  wires  and  rods 
And  it  measured  pressures  of  mind  and  will. 
And  here  in  the  shadows  I  see  the  light.     I  trace  life's 

records;  when  all  is  still, 
Register  scales  for  the  works  of  gods. 

Los  Angeles,  11-21-13 


THE  AIRMAN 

I  WENT    soaring    through    the    sunshine,    when    the 
noon   was  hot  and   high. 

I  rose  in  ranging  spirals,  like  a  maelstrom  made  to  fly. 
I  made  my  upper  level,  and  I  cut  my  motor  free. 
And  I  catapulted  down  a  mile.     Then  I  began  to  be 
One  free  pulse  of  man's  perfection  and  his  larger  liberty: 


And  a  thought  of  life  incarnate  in  a  boundless  brain  of 
blue. 

I  rose  throbbing  through  the  silences,  and  clouds  I 
clambered  through ; 

Till  the  twilight  came  acreeping  as  the  tide  sets  back  to 
land, 

From  the  night  that  still  lay  sleeping.  I  began  to  under 
stand 

How  men  mount  to  meet  tomorrow  from  the  ocean's 
slime  and  sand. 

To  the  sea  cliffs,  to  the  tree  tops,  to  the  snow  peaks,  on 

they  came; 
Wave  on  wave  of  will  and   hunger,   pulse  on  pulse  of 

force  and  flame ; 
Past  the  glaciers,  past  the  lava,  deserts,  forests,  faltered 

far. 
They  left  the  night  of  jungles.     They  went  steering  by 

a  star, 

196 


THE  AIRMAN  197 

From   those  jungles,   in   the  ether   where   lost   suns   like 
orchids  are. 


These  grew  large  when  twilight  loomed,  when  I  had 
plumhed  the  curve  of  time: 

Endless  spirals  round  the  planets  past  dead  tribes  too 
tired  to  climb, 

Kndless  gyres  where  eagles's  pinions  ghostly  pathways 
pioneered, 

For  high  hearts  that  ride  the  whirlwind.  To  my  soar 
ing  soul  appeared 

All  men  made,  and  all  their  marching,  till  a  trail  to 
heaven  they  reared. 

All  processionals  of  peril  till  our  best  began  to  be, 
Born  of  men  that  held  the  hills,  and  made  their  highways 

over  sea. 
I  was  free  in  space  forever.     Then  my  essence  thinned 

and   failed; 
Then  my  motor  died,  and  faster  flashing  through  the  air 

I  sailed  ; 
Fell    through    wider    spirals    still,    till    through    earth's 

shadow  slow  I  trailed. 


There  was  rest  and  food,  and  human  hearts  and  hands, 
and  help  and  heat. 


i98  THE  AIRMAN 

All  our  vital  stores  renewing,  till  our  motor's  tireless 
beat 

Dies  beyond  the  daylight's  limit,  past  the  outer  surf  of 
air; 

We  shall  seek  our  new  worlds  out,  to  harbors  new  for 
ever  fare, 

Where  man  mounts  to  meet  tomorrow;  masters  life  for 
ever  there. 

S.S.  Scotian,  7-l8-Il 


THE  SIGNAL  TOWER 

I  SEE  the  warp  and  woof  of  things  cross  and  re- 
cross  in  strands  of  steel. 

I  shift  my  levers  one  by  one,  my  switches  in  the  moon 
light  throw. 

I  hold  the  keys  of  life  and  death.  I  master  them  today. 
I  know 

My  schedules  as  you  know  your  hand.  My  hands  a 
giant  keyboard  feel, 

And  more  than  music's  harmonies  the  silences  to  me 
reveal. 


For  my  piano  stretches  far  between  two  cities,  thirty 
miles 

And  more.  I  strike  my  chords  across  the  big  black  sound 
ing-box  of  night. 

I  play  them  up.  And  rolling  true,  a  mile  a  minute's 
blurr  of  light, 

The  Limited  goes  flaming  by.  A  woman  at  a  window 
smiles, 

A  forger  sees  success.  A  fool  the  dullness  of  his  life 
reviles. 

A  baby  wakes.  His  mother's  smile,  her  tense  caress  un 
seen  is  mine. 

A  lover  sees  his  sweetheart  near.  A  widow's  heart  brings 
home  her  dead. 

199 


200  THE  SIGNAL  TOWER 

I   break  their  motives  with  a  jar.     I   halt  them  with  a 

wreck  ahead. 
I  seize  their  thoughts  that  wander  dazed,  and  breathless 

fear  with  faith  combine; 
Then  in  a  second's  sure  crescendo,  I  send  them  clanging 

down  the  line. 

By  day  I  halt  them  here  and  there,  my  iron  ritual  enforce. 

I  drill  their  souls  undisciplined.  I  give  and  take  the 
right  of  way. 

I  am  tomorrow's  ministrant.  My  crossroad's  altar  of  to 
day 

They  all  pay  tribute  to;  obey  the  hand  I  hold  across  their 
course ; 

The  strongest  and  the  weak  as  well.  Against  my  will  is 
no  resource. 

And  here  in  trembling  and  in  fear  I  deal  with  life  that 

leaps  to  me. 
For  once  one  second  saved  a  wreck.     And  every  second 

death  that  lurks 
In  fire  and  fog  may  break  the  leash  I  hold  on  him  and 

all  his  works. 
And   time  will   take  his  sacrifice.     And   greed   and  speed 

relentlessly, 
Must  fling  their  children  to  the  flames,  that  so  the  millions 

may  go   free. 


THE  SIGNAL  TOWER  201 

I  serve  the  millions.  Stronger  hands  than  mine  thrust 
back  the  specters  stark. 

Blindfold  I  shuttle  destinies.  I  send  them  on  to  ends  un 
known  ; 

Strong  soldiers  of  the  centuries  and  lives  that  sink  in 
shame  alone. 

I  set  my  semaphores,  that  men  starting  irom  sodden 
slumbers  mark, 

Who  by  their  living  worship  life  that  drives  them  blindly 
through  the  dark. 

Los  Angeles,  11-15-13 


THE  CONSTRUCTION  GANG 

THEY  caught  us  in  the  steerage  when  they  brought 
us  over  sea ; 
They  tagged  us  with  their  tickets  and  they  crowded  us 

in  cars; 

They  rolled  us  to  a  railhead  of  an  empire  yet  to  be, 
One  night  beneath  the  stars. 

In  the  blackness  of  the  bunkhouse  we  were  waked  before 

the  dawn. 
And  the}'  gave  us  pick  and  crowbar,  taught  us  how  to 

heave  and  strike. 
Where  across  a  dusty  desert   two  thin   strands  of  steel 

were  drawn, 

Side  by  side  and  just  alike. 

We  went  working  through  the  sage  brush  where  an  ocean 
once  went  dry, 

In  a  country  cursed  with   devils  like  the  heavens  over 
head, 

And  they  burned  to  scattered  clinkers  saw-toothed  moun 
tains  round  the  sky. 

Till  the  last  dim  cloud  was  dead. 

To  the  country  of  the  cactus  we  came  slowly  day  by 

day. 
Tie  by  tie  we  bound  the  levels,  foot  by  foot  we  filled  the 

grade ; 

202 


THE  CONSTRUCTION  GJ\G          203 

And  we  strained  the  sagging  cables  of  a  power  house  far 
away 

Up  the  road  our  hands  had  made. 

And   the  sand  storms  tried   to  blind   us,  and  the  winds 

like  devils  danced, 
Till    the   air   was   black   at   noonday.     And   the   desert's 

maddened  soul 
Rose  to  wrestle  with  our  working  and  to  rave.     But  we 

advanced 

Step  by  step,  and  grasped  our  goal. 

For  our  brothers  came  to  meet  us  from  the  mountains 

and  the  sea. 
And  we  spliced  the  line  at  Summit;  drove  the  spike  that 

marked  the  end ; 
And  we  floated  down  to  Frisco  where  the  barkeep  mixes 

free, 

Just  as  long  as  luck's  your  friend. 

We  put  money  on  the  tables  and  our  manhood  on  the 

bars, 
We  who  made  tomorrow  nearer  for  the  world  that  waits 

to  ride, 
Till  we  straggled  back  from  brothels  to  the  open  where 

the  stars 

See  the  desert's  doors  flung  wide. 

Los  Angeles,  11-7-13 


THE  LINESMAN 

CAN'T  you  see  them  through  the  ages,  smoking  flares 
by  lava  lit, 
Waxen  torches,  Tyre  and  Sidon's  galley  lamps,  that  float 

and  flit 

Past   night's   narrowing   frontier ;   temple   lanterns,   cres 
sets  high 
Greece  and  Venice  and  Japan  gave  the  globe  to  worship 

by, 

Gave  the  tribes  of  men   that   marching  like   the  lights, 
must  live  and  die? 


There  were  beacons  on  the  hills,  there  were  burning  spires 

and  towers. 
Light  went  leaping  round  the  world  and  blossomed  forth 

in  flaming  flowers, 
Till  the  ages  dark  were  ended.     Candles  guttered.     Oil 

they  drew 
From  the  veins  of  earth,   new   gases   flickered,   flags  of 

flame  for  you, 
Leading    science;    searching,    finding    larger    lights    and 

clearer,  too. 

Out  of  air  and  out  of  ether,  came  new  tremblings  through 

the  night. 
Man  that  takes  the  pulse  of  life,  has  found  her  fevered, 

sweating  light; 

204 


THE  LINESMAN  205 

Curried   her  with   brazen   brushes,  spurred   her  on  with 

spikes  of  fire; 
Furnaces  and  dynamos  he  trained  and  tuned ;  now  to  their 

choir 

Rivers  harnessed  to  his  service  bring  new  notes  of  man's 
desire. 

So  the  lights  march  on.  I  see  them  in  the  jungles,  in  the 
mirk; 

Lurking  shadows  flee  before  them,  in  the  slums  where 
men  must  work, 

In  steel  caisson-coffins  dying;  in  the  mines  that  keep  you 
warm; 

Finding  power,  that  seaborne  marches  faster  still  through 
fog  and  storm. 

Swarms  of  light,  new  regiments  of  life  I  lead :  from  mid 
night  form. 

Through  your  mist  filled  mills  I  send  them,  where  wet 

cotton  lint  like  snow 
Covers  children,  coughing,  falling,  ulcered  lives  too  sick 

to  grow. 
There  I  show  you  sin  and  shame.     My  searchlight  fingers 

I  display, 
Shifting,  feeling  past  all  perils.     I  make  midnight  bright 

as  day. 


206  THE  LINESMAN 

Where  your  cities  focus  life  that  festers,  I  make  white  its 
way. 

Now  new  stars  and  constellations  through  your  streets 

and  meadows  shine. 
Past  your  footlights  I  lead  joy.     Laboratory,  school  and 

shrine, 
I    have    sentineled ;    your    surgeons    reinforced.     Where 

mothers  see 
Lives  that  leap  to  light  from  midnight,  I  have  toiled  to 

set  you  free  — 
I,  the  midwife  of  your  spirits,  bring  to  light  your  years  to 

be. 

Peconic,  6—27—14 


THE  ACCOUNTANT 

HI  RK  is  eternity  today,  God's  body  broken  to  your 
hands. 

You  let  it  slip  and  fall  away  or  mold  it  to  your  soul's  de 
mands. 
All    things  must  pass,   the  current   flows.     Your  vortex 

ring  of  will  as  well 

A  zero  or  one  unit  shows  in  man's  account  of  heaven  and 
hell. 


Not  to  be  nothing  —  I  am  one  of  millions  toiling  in  the 

dark 
For  wages  bare  from  sun  to  sun,  who  see  far  lights  of  life, 

and  mark 
Some  muffled  thunder  of  applause  when  man  the  master 

conquers  time, 
Out  of  new  matter  forges  laws  that  force  a  million  souls 

to  climb. 

God  sends  new  Prophets  in  our  day.     Darwin  and  Wal 
lace  pioneered 
For  Spencer  and  the  rest  the  way,  till  a  new  heaven  and 

earth  appeared. 
Crooks,  Haeckel,  Curie,  Edison,  Marconi,  MetchnikofT, 

Carrel, 
Pasteur  and  Erlich,  all  have  won  for  men  new  issues  forth 

from  hell : 
Hell  that  is  waste  in  rotting  flesh,  in  ulcered  streets  and 

and  souls  as  well. 

207 


208  THE  ACCOUNTANT 

God  writes  new  scriptures  hour  by  hour.     Of  all   His 

scribes  I  am  the  least. 
I  list  men's  lusts,  their  greed  for  power  in  ledgers  black. 

Where  soul  and  beast 
Wrestle  and  writhe  and  rise  and  fall,  I  chart  a  nation's 

fever  curve. 
I  cast  its  belance.     Least  of  all  thy  scribes  of  truth:  I 

also  serve. 


Had  I  the  power  of  Parkman  blind,  but  regent  of  his  life 
time,  then: 

The  awful  annals  of  the  mind,  this  sudden  rush  of 
thought  to  men, 

I  should  set  forth  in  order,  show  how  doubt  and  dogma 
still  go  back, 

New  searchlights  through  mean  streets  would  throw, 
through  each  soul  alley,  foul  and  black, 

New  antiseptics  of  the  brain  announce,  in  tense  detail 
relate 

How  Christ  has  come  to  earth  again,  how  God  is  man 
and  masters  fate. 

Today  flames  forth  a  new  crusade,  the  last  the  sternest 

creed  of  all. 
For   man    the   ape   by   ages   made   mounts   to   the   stars, 

though  churches  fall. 


THE  ACCOUNTANT  209 

He  spreads  his  wings;  his  airships  soar.     New  tremblings 

through  the  ether  thrill, 
New  messengers  of  fire  adore  his  more  immune,  immortal 

will. 
One  letter  of  that  Gospel  learned,  one  text  of  freedom 

to  proclaim, 
With  loftier  faith  than  e'er  discerned  the  martyr's  eye: 

I  suffer  shame, 
I  pave  my  body  to  be  burned,  I  send  my  soul  to  feed  the 

flame. 

S.S.Dunbea.  2-10-14 


MOVIES 

BROADWAY'S  one  big  moving  picture.     Where   I 
sit  I  see  it  plain, 
Typing  letters  by  my  window  while  they  come  and  go 

again, 
People  passing,  millions,  always,  until  midnight  shifts  the 

reels. 

There  are  days  I  see  it,  hear  it,  seem  to  know  just  how  it 
feels. 


There  are  days  life  seems  so  near  that  I  could  touch  it  in 

the  street, 
Kiss  them  all,  both  men  and  women,  bring  their  wasted 

lives  to  meet. 
There  are  days  they  glide  like  shadows  through  the  mist 

with  muffled  tread, 
And  my  soul  goes  out  to  seize  them  through  the  air  that 

drags  like  lead. 

They  go  silently  like  shadows  through  the  shadow  cold 
and  gray, 

Color  stolen  from  their  faces,  thought  and  purpose  drained 
away 

Faster  still  to  feed  the  lights  that  flame  forever  for  suc 
cess. 

Moving  shadow-shapes  of  pain  and  toil  that  fails  in  loneli 
ness. 

210 


MONIES  211 

Shadow  pictures,  bloodless,  lifeless.     Yet  we  watch  them 

though  we  know 
Life  is  on  the  hills,  the  ocean,  in  green  woods  where  all 

things  grow. 
Shadow  shapes  as  gray  and  grimy  as  the  parts  of  time's 

machine, 
Grinding  life  across  the  city  with   gray   daylight   for  a 

screen. 


Over  there  is  life,  but  here  our  life  persists  and  tonc- 

lessly 
Struggles  on  between  the  seats  where  millions  more  like 

me  may  see. 
Millions  more  like  me,  all   marching   toward   tomorrow 

past  today. 
We  can  see  the  frauds,  the  failures,  see  weak  faces  on  their 

way. 

Cold  and  gray  they  move  forever.     They  are  marching  past 

despair, 
Past  defeat,  to  better  things,  to  larger  light,  to  clearer 

air. 

On  the  altar  of  tomorrow  casting  all,  till  time  reveals 
All  we  doubted,  feared,  despairing  of  the  ending  of  the 

reels. 


212  MONIES 

We  have  made  the  pictures  move  and  mirror  life  that  wins 

at  last, 
Records  new  to  stir  tomorrow,  purpose  new  that  brings  the 

past 
Back  to  make  the  people  live,  the  blind  to  see,  my  brain  to 

know 
How  my  fingers  hammering  each  key  have  helped  today 

to  growr. 

New  York,  6-22-14 


THE  PIT 

T    WENT  sinking  from  the  sunlight  and  the  faces  of 

my  friends, 
Till  at  last  they  never  knew  me.     I  went  sinking  deeper 

yet; 
Drinking  death  by  inches  warm,  and  wet,  and  fighting  to 

forget ; 
Killing  longing,   killing  thinking,   into  night  that  never 

ends. 


One  warm  wave  reached  up  and  splashed  me,  smeared  my 

footing  where  I  stood, 
Where  the  city's  cliffs  and  ledges  built  frail  bridges  o'er 

the  pit ; 
Sieve  on  sieve  that  lets  you  through  or  lets  you  cling. 

Last  night  I  could 
Scent  salvation  in  the  spring,  and  feel  that  I  still  was  heir 

to  it. 


One  warm  wave  reached  up  and  swept  me  where  God 

lets  His  gutters  reek, 
Where  lost  women  sob  at  midnight,  shriek  and  shudder; 

till  I  stood 
Where  the  pressure  of  the  millions  crushes  down  the  sick 

and  weak, 
Every   will   life  wastes  still,   slowly   to   the  slime's   last 

brotherhood. 


2i4  THE  PIT 

I  ate  garbage  in  the  gutters.     I  lay  noisome  in  the  sun. 

Scrubbed  spittoons  for  drink  to  drug  me,  stole  from  chil 
dren  and  the  blind, 

Wrote  love  letters  for  a  harlot,  shared  her  wages:  one  by 
one 

Learned  each  secret  shame  that  festers  in  the  flesh  of 
humankind. 

Something  saved  me:  for  the  pit  has  tides  that  rise  and 

fall  and  rise. 
I   woke  up  one  morning  early,  heard  the  trolleys  clank 

and  jar, 
Through  their  sound  a  woman  sang  a  song  I  knew.     I 

raised  my  eyes, 
From  a  pier  head  saw  the  sunrise:  knew  each  cinder  hides 

a  star. 


On  the  street  I  found  a  friend.  I  turned  from  him,  then 
took  his  hand, 

Took  his  clothes,  his  food,  his  faith ;  let  him  find  me  work 
to  do; 

Found  that  I  had  not  forgotten  how  to  love.  I  under 
stand 

Why  the  pit  for  man's  salvation  must  persist  the  ages 
through. 


THE  PIT  215 

There  man  tries  the  strength  of  love.     God  Almighty's 

mercy  knows. 

We  can  never  love  the  happy  in  our  happiness  as  well 
As  the  soul  that  still  must  suffer,   lavishing  all   life  it 

owes 
On  the  human  hands  and  hearts  whose  loving  lifts  the  lost 

from  hell. 

Peconic,  7-30-14 


MOODS 


KINSHIP  AT  DAVOS 

I   RODE  through  the  rain  on  my  way  that  day; 
(Thirty  miles  pedalled  through  drizzle  and  mud) 
Till  I  took  the  train.     And  I  thirsted  for  blood. 
And  I  couldn't  hear  all  that  the  mountains  say  — 
"If  you  can't  be  as  big  and  as  high  as  we  are 
Be  as  big  as  you  can."     And  I  looked  from  the  car 
At  the  flanks  of  the  hills  like  two  walls  that  were  green 
And  the  torrents  that  tore  the  gray  boulders  between. 
And  they  sang  as  they  flowed,  "  We  must  fall  who  were 

free, 
There  are  rocks  in  our  road.     But  we  run  to  the  sea." 

And  the  steam  of  the  train  as  it  writhed  and  it  hissed 
Like  a  snake  as  it  mounted,  was  lost  in  the  mist; 
Till  only  the  pine  tops  stood  clear  of  the  gray 
Like  souls  that  have  sunk  to  their  shoulders  in  clay. 
Then  over  the  summit  we  slithered  at  last, 
With  the  wheels  rolling  faster.     The  mists  breaking  fast 
Watched  a  world  that  to  wonder  and  terror  awoke, 
And  into  decision's  gray  valley  we  broke. 

Then  I  came  to  a  kurhaus  and  cursed  at  the  rain, 
Till  I  looked  at  the  souls  that  lay  languid  in  pain. 
And  one  of  them  rose  looking  ruddy  and  strong. 
Now  he  hails  me  in  English  —  Tonight  we  belong 
To  the  kinship  of  blood  and  of  brains  and  of  heart, 
That  can  make  of  life's  moments  an  altar  and  art. 

219 


220  KINSHIP  AT  DAVOS 

He  was  human  that  Hollander.     Things  that  he  told 
They  shall  glow  in  my  mind  when  the  world  has  grown 

old. 

And  he  laughed  at  my  stories  with  death  in  his  face. 
There  were  books  we  both  loved.     Oh!  the  grayest  dis 
grace 

Is  to  go  through  one's  life  like  a  stock  or  a  stone, 
And  to  suffer,  and  stumble,  and  struggle  alone. 

Davos,  7-30-12 


A  REST 

LAST  night  I  dreamed  of  you.     I  had  not  seen  you 
Or  heard  from  you  for  weeks.     I  tried  to  pass 
What  once  was  wonder's   door.     You  came  and   called 

me. 

There  was  Ruth's  message,  better  said  than  written. 
And  so  I  stood ;  found  in  your  fire  once  more  the  last  of 
earth's  enigmas. 

You  had  a  concert  later,  yet  you  let  me  stay. 

Tomorrow  was  Aida.     I  might  take  you. 

So  for  an  hour  we  sat  where  I  could  see  you 

Between  the  twilight  and  the  boulevard, 

That  blazed  below  with  lights  like  golden  days 

In  life's  long  darkness,  with  thin  pools  of  rain 

Like  stormy  memories  that  mirrored  —  nothing  much. 

Little  you  said.     Your  words  were  like  the  notes 

Of  chords  that  silence  long  alone  completes. 

And  I  said  less.     Yet  for  a  space  our  spirits  hand  in  hand 

Wondered  at  all  the  hours  we  men  and  women  waste 

In  noise  and  restlessness.     I  seemed  to  hear 

The  tuning  up  of  life's  last  orchestra. 

We  for  a  moment  struck  the  pitch  together  there. 

I  know  that  stronger,  surer  hands  than  ours 
Must  set  the  score  and  hold  the  leader's  baton ; 


222  A  REST 

That  never  once  again  in  unison  we  might  sound  strings 

that  snap, 

Life  and  the  tempered  tolerance  of  time, 
That  life  interprets  to  its  worshipers. 

You  were  too  tense  too  often.     But  last  night 

You  rested  as  your  hands  rest  on  a  note 

Stretched  like  a  golden  wire  that  binds  our  hearts 

To  the  hereafter  and  the  past  together.     Nothing  more 

I  wanted  then:  until  I  woke  to  face 

This  world  that  out  of  heartbreak  wins  today. 

Los  Angeles,  11-23-13 


FLOOD  TIDE 

WIIT.N  things  arc  running  crossways  till  ca:h  nrrve 
cries  out  in  pain, 
When  a  thousand  clanging  hammers  of  the  street  heat  in 

my  brain, 

There  comes  a  day  when  I  drift  away  to  an  island  of  re 
pose, 

And  I   lie  in  my  swaying  hammock  where  the  gray  tide 
water  flows. 

I  lie  in  my  hammock  on  the  porch  till  the  grayness  turns 

to  blue 
And  the  morning  lifts  the  mist  that  shifts  to  make  day 

fit  for  you, 
And  the  tide  comes  creeping  landward  as  the  sun  comes 

climbing  high, 
And  the  little  winds  of  the  morning  go  rippling  through 

the  sky. 

And    the   little   waves   on    the   beaches   thrill   where   the 

grasses  nod  and  dip. 

And  earth  and  sea  are  lovers,  and  lip  comes  home  to  lip. 
And  your  voice  is  softly  singing  through  long  lessons  of 

delight, 
And  the  birds  are  winging  round  the  flame  unseen,  serene 

and  white; 


•2.23 


224  FLOOD  TIDE 

High  on  your  hearth's  bare  altar,  in  the  shadows  where  I 
see 

A  form  that  flits  by  a  window  where  life  smiles  back  at 
me. 

Then  I  know  why  the  Lord  of  our  breathlessness,  our 
haste,  our  waste  and  fret, 

Can  lift  us  up  on  His  tides  of  light  for  a  season,  to  for 
get; 

The  sunken  reefs  of  our  cities,  and  the  wrecks  that  drift 

and  sink, 
Flotsam  of  fears  and  prayers  and  tears  and  torments;  and 

I  think 

That  we  live  in  a  tideless  ocean,  till  a  tide  that  rises  high 
Shall  lift  us  up  past  moon  and  stars'  white  tide  marks  in 

the  sky, 
Till  the  last  lost  shipwrecked  life  on  earth  has  grown  too 

great  to  die. 

Riverhead,  7-9-14 


PLE1N  AIR 

I    SIT  in  the  open  country  beneath  my  apple  trees, 
And  the  winds  walk  up  to  talk  with  me.     There  all 
the  sky  one  sees, 

And  my  heart's  for  the  far  horizons  and  the  little  creeping 
things; 

A  bird  in  the  grass,  and  a  flower  in  the  field.     A  grub  un 
folds  its  wings, 

And  my  fancy  flits  and  soars  with  him  and  sings  where 
rivers  run, 

Out  in  the  open  country  I  go  swimming  in  the  sun. 

And  a  motor  hoots  down  the  highway,  and  my  thoughts 

go  travelling  back 
To  the  city's  crowded  prison  cells  where  life  lies  on  the 

rack; 
To   the   streets   that   they   smear   with   shadows   till   the 

strongest  slip  and  fall. 

Out  in  the  open  country  there  is  life  and  light  for  all. 
And  the  sky  is  a  high  cathedral  where  all  the  nights  and 

days 
They   kindle   lights  of  worship;  and   life   is  prayer  and 

praise. 

A  ploughman  rounds  his  furrows  in  rituals  as  old 

As  the  incense  he  sets  free  for  me.     A  painter  gets  his 

gold 

From  buttercups  in  the  meadow  and  sunlight  on  the  brook. 

225 


226  PLE1N  AIR 

A  bee  goes  stealing  honey  where  I  begin  my  book. 
And  nine  little  yellow  goslings  go  down  the  sea  to  seek, 
And  the  life  that  lives  in  the  marshes.     A  boat  beats  up 
the  creek. 

A  baby  beats  on  a  window.     And  I  think  of  the  souls  that 

crawl 
Past  counters  heaped  with  human  hearts,  from  office  wall 

to  wall, 
Where  the  tickers  time  the  tiring  hearts  of  greed  and  a 

gray  desire. 

Out  in  the  open  country  today  is  a  golden  fire. 
And  the  sun  mounts  up  to  midday  till  all  the  air  is  light. 
And  the  clouds  are  the  breath  of  God  Himself  who  gives 

us  day  and  night. 

He  is  here  in  the  air  around  us.     And  His  words  are  the 

winds  of  May. 
He  is  there  in  the  hearts  that  hold  Him  fast  and  take 

Him  home  today, 
Where  babes  are  burned  to  Moloch,  and  offered  blindly 

there 
To  the  greed  and  grime  of  millions,  in  the  horror  and 

despair, 
Where  a  baby  beats  at  a  window,  two  pennies  clutching 

tight, 

Till  life,  the  mother,  takes  today  and  lifts  it  up  to  light. 
Peconic,  5-28-14 


SATURDAY'S  TRAIN 

SATURDAY'S  train  is  always  late.     We  stand  on  a 
plaform  of  splintered  planks, 
Until  New  York  for  a  marvelous  minute  into  our  cosmos 

slides  and  clanks. 
The  mail  bag  falls,  trunks  hit  the  floor,  and  people  in 

turn  on  the  steps  appear; 

Portraits  framed  in  a  vestibule  door,  with  their  faces  smil 
ing  and  flushed  and  dear. 

And  the  girls  on  the  platform  chatter  and  kiss  and  hug  as 
they  hang  on  each  other's  necks, 

And  we  hustle  them  off  to  our  motors  and  rigs,  and  we 
grab  their  bags  and  their  coats  and  checks. 

And  the  motors  and  rigs  are  standing  in  ranks  around  the 
door  of  a  corner  store, 

And  one  of  us  waits  outside  for  the  mail  where  the  farm 
ers  tramp  like  the  train  on  the  floor. 

And  we  get  our  letters  and  look  at  the  news,  and  we  pay 

for  peaches  and  cigarettes, 
Oars  and  raisins,  and  tennis  shoes,  and  talcum  powder  and 

landing  nets, 
And  we  gossip  and  race  to  the  cross  roads.     Then,  one 

after  another  we  glide  away 
Down  our  own  little  lane  in  the  heart  of  the  woods  that 

leads  to  light  by  the  side  of  the  bay. 
227 


228  SATURDAY'S  TRAIN 

In  mid-Manhattan  in  mid-July  from  my  office  window  I 

gaze  afar 
Past  the  haze  of  heat  and  the  smoking  roofs  to  the  shallows 

cool  where  our  beaches  are. 
And  I  see  the  faces  of  people  that  paint,  people  that  write, 

and  the  rest  that  wait 
On  a  splintered  platform,  week  after  week,  for  a  Saturday 

train  that  is  sure  to  be  late. 


Henry  and  Edith,  Helen  and  Charles,  and  a  score  besides 

through  the  heat  rays  swim: 
And  the  children,  Isabelle,  Betty  and  Jack,  Richard  and 

Caroline,  Babs  and  Bim. 
And  I  want  to  get  back  to  the  paths  they  tread,  to  the 

flowers  they  find,  to  the  wind  in  the  trees, 
And  the  sailing  dories  and  motor  boats,  and  the  sound  and 

the  sweep  and  the  color  of  seas. 


There's  a  weed  in  a  crack  in  the  bathhouse  floor.     There's 

a  window  low  where  I  watch  the  moon. 
There's   a   curve   in   the  creek   where   the   fireflies   flash. 

There  are  stars  in  the  trees,  I  shall  see  them  soon. 
And  the  old  gray  station's  an  altar  of  life,  and  its  pilgrim 

armies  each  Sabbath  ascend 
To  the  worship  of  winds  in  the  open  air,  and  the  shrines 

in  your  soul  where  you  find  your  friend. 


SATURDAY'S  TRAIX  229 

There's  maybe  a  heaven  hereafter,  yes.     But  I  guess  that 

it  never  can  be  complete 
Without  that  station  two  rods  or  less  from  the  end  of  the 

shadowy  settlement  street; 
Without  the  faces  you're  sweating  to  find  at  the  end  of  a 

lifetime's  working  day, 
When  your  soul  from  its  stupor,  dumb  and  blind,  leaps  up 

like  a  boy's  to  its  last  long  play. 
Heaven    hereafter?     Never    you    mind.      Here's    heaven 

enough  for  one  week  on  the  way. 

Peconic,  7-27-14 


WELCOME 

Til!  RE  is  a  hillside  garden  that  their  tender  hands 
have  tended, 
Below  a  house  that  holds   for  me  a  shrine  of  joy  and 

light. 
And   there  beneath  a  cloudless  sun  when  June  is  warm 

and  splendid 

I  see  them  coming  home  to  me,  three  girls  in  garments 
white. 

Alice  with  lilies  in  her  hands,  and  little  dark  Dolores 
Showing  her  glowing  marigolds;  and  Iris  last  of  all 
Under  the  arbor  by  the  wall  of  purple  morning  glories; 
Bringing  my  crimson  ramblers  back  that  sought  to  scale 
the  wall. 

Alice  with  smiles  along  her  lips ;  Dolores  still  and  tender ; 
Iris  whose  eyes  can  tell  me  more  than  tongue  shall  ever 

say; 

They  offer  to  my  open  arms  their  bodies  soft  and  slender, 
Bringing  the  best  of  summer  here,  their  garlanded  today. 

Into  my  study  they  have  swept  and  brasses  from  Benares, 

Vases  from  Venice  they  have  filled,  and  hung  their  wreaths 
around 

The  portrait  where  their  mother  smiles  like  the  tall  tran 
quil  Maries 

That    Perugino   used    to   paint,    with    hair   like   sunlight 
crowned. 

230 


WELCOME  231 

"  Mother   is  coming   home   today."      (The   words  them 
selves  are  singing.) 

"  How  long  it  is,"  our  litany,  forgotten,  they  repeat, 
Making  their   last   response   to   love,   their   last   oblation 

bringing, 

Till  at  the  hour  of  evensong,  their  voices  still  more  sweet, 
Tremble  and  sanctify  the  house  where  happy  hearts  shall 
meet. 

Yokohama,  i2 


CHILDREN 

YOU  cannot  see  the  children,  you  have  hidden  them 
away. 
In  the  shadows,  in  the  streets  of  shame,  of  souls  too  tired 

to  play, 

Of  lives  too  sad  to  smile  at  light,  that  never  see  the  sun ; 
Toiling  on  to  meet  the  midnight  till  the  day's  long  task 

is  done; 

Toiling,  choking  in  your  sweatshops.  These  you  mur 
dered  one  by  one. 

You  cannot  hear  the  children.  In  the  noises  of  your 
streets 

You  have  drowned  each  sigh  of  pleasure,  dulled  each 
heart  that  leaps,  that  beats, 

Like  hillside  brooks  your  greed  makes  sluggish,  stagnant. 
You  have  choked  their  cries, 

Cries  of  rapture,  slowly  ceasing,  till  tonight's  last  lulla 
bies 

Through  your  riot  sound  like  dirges,  where  love  watches 
love  that  dies. 

You  cannot  feel  the  children.     Kisses  sweet  as  birds  at 

dawn, 
Fail  where  wailing,  faint  and   fretful,  souls  that  smiled 

have  starved  and  gone. 
All  their  little  least  caresses,  you  have  thwarted,  thrust 

aside; 

232 


CHILDREN  233 

Every  drowsy  head  that  presses  closer  home  at  even  tide ; 
Kvery  kiss  that  lingers,  blesses,  you  have  lost  in  greed  and 
pride. 


You  cannot  love  the  children  that  you  lose  and  leave 
alone ; 

Lives  unborn  and  warped  and  wasted,  while  your  hearts 
are  turned  to  stone, 

In  your  mills  by  millions  murdered.  Like  the  flowers  you 
starved  and  smeared 

In  lost  gardens  of  your  cities;  till  a  shadow  black  ap 
peared 

Of  their  anguish,  dumb  and  dreadful,  near  success  by 
slaves  revered. 


You  cannot  save  the  children  till  you  learn  yourself  to 

save, 
And   the  burden  of   their   ruin   you   must  carry   to   the 

grave; 
Growing  cru**l,  tame  and  tearless,  flesh  and  spirit  frail  as 

well; 
Butchered  by  machines  by  millions,  you  have  left  them 

there  in  hell; 
Till  their  ruin's  black  infection  taints  the  thing  you  buy 

and  sell. 


234  CHILDREN 

But  you  cannot  check  the  children.  Life  is  stronger  than 
your  sins, 

Than  your  bitterness  and  blindness;  and  a  fairer  day  be 
gins. 

They  are  stirring,  they  are  waking.  Out  of  mill  and 
mine  and  slum, 

Like  sap  in  spring,  like  light  at  dawn,  like  life  at  birth  they 
come; 

And  their  cry  becomes  a  gospel,  life's  last  word  on  lips 
long  dumb. 

Peconic,  6-11-14 


BED  RIDDEX 

I  WAS  a  child.     I  lay  in  bed. 
They  put  a  bandage  round  my  head 
And  doctors  came  and  looked  at  me. 
I  was  as  sick  as  I  could  be, 
And  I  could  hardly  smile  or  see. 

But  sometimes  that  the  sky  was  blue 
I  knc\v.     When  most  I  longed  for  you 
I  heard  you  singing  soft  and  low 
The  songs  that  mothers  always  know, 
And  then  the  pain  would  seem  to  go. 

And  sometimes  when  I  waked  at  night, 
When  all  was  dark,  a  single  light 
Would  show  you  sitting  by  my  side 
And  "  Mother,  Mother  dear!  "  I  cried, 
And  you  were  near  until  you  died. 

I  was  a  child.     I  lay  abed. 
God  put  His  pressure  on  my  head. 
He  sent  His  pain  to  question  me 
WTien  all  the  world  was  mine  to  see 
And   I   was  sad  as  I  could  he. 

I  xvas  alone.     I  longed  for  you. 
And  sometimes  when  the  sky  is  blue 
I  seem  to  see  you,  seem  to  know 
235 


236  BED  RIDDEX 

Your  voice  forever  sweet  and  low, 
And  dream  that  you  can  never  go. 

And  sometimes  when  the  stars  at  night 
Sprinkle  that  river  black  with  li«zht 
Like  stepping  stones  that  cross  the  sky ; 
I  go  to  meet  you,  dear.     And  I 
Know  you  are  near,  until  I  die. 

Pe conic,  6—5—14 


PLAY  RITUAL 

UNDKR  the  trees  of  the  orchard's  gray  columns  and 
cloisters,  upholding 

Courts  of  the  temple  of  living,  the  world  has  forgotten 
today. 

Bulwarked  by  bastions  of  preen  the  true  treasures  of  ages 
unfolding, 

Safe  in  the  shade  of  a  hedge,  her  children  I  hear  at  their 
play; 

And  I  sit  by  my  window  and  watch  and  I  listen,  a  life 
time  away. 


Here  is  a  carbon  of   Pallas.     And  yonder,   Ulysses,  her 

chosen 
Creeps  through  his  palace  at  night  with  Argos  the  hound 

at  his  heels, 
With  him  Kumaeus,  the  swineherd,  the  son  of  my  cook. 

Fear  has  frozen 
The  suitors,   Penelope's  dolls.     The  bow  twangs.     The 

last  of  them  reels. 
And  the  queen  at  the  sight  of  the  slain  a  rage  unrecorded 

reveals. 

She  is  pacified  fully  with  gifts.     Brother's  coat  is  a  carpet 

that  flying 
Has  haled  them  in  haste  to  the  East  where  Golconda  is 

grown  on  the  trees. 

237 


238  PLAY  RITUAL 

And  topaz  and  rubies  they  rain  on  her  lap.  Every  skeptic 
belying 

The  story  of  Eden  they  act,  in  costume  convention  de 
crees 

With  a  snake  that  I  gave  them  last  May,  made  of  rubber 
that  squirms  when  you  squeeze. 

They  are  Argonauts  bound  for  the  ports  where  Medea 
mandagora  mixes 

In  a  smudge  that  mosquitoes  abhor  (I  can  smell  the  stray 
fumes  of  it  here). 

And  Aladdin,  before  they  are  lost,  and  the  Jinn  of  the 
bottle.  She  fixes 

Her  hair  with  the  comb  of  the  Lorelei.  They  are  every 
thing  living  and  dear 

That  the  poets  and  children  of  time  must  remember 
while  year  follows  year. 

And   her  soul   is  the  soul  of   the  wind   that   my   baby's 

bright  tresses  caresses, 
And   she  kisses  the  lips  of  her  son  as  they  stiffen   and 

sternly  command. 
And  her  life  is  the  life  of  the  earth  that  inch  of  their 

loveliness  presses 
As  they  throw  themselves  down  in  the  shadows  too  tired 

and  too  sleepy  to  stand. 


PLAY  RITi'Al.  239 

And  she  calls,  and  they  smile  and  they  see  her,  in  dreams 
of  the  heart's  shadowland. 

There  the  spirits  of  mothers  that  played  with  their  babies 

forever  are  tender. 
And   the  little  flushed  cheeks  in   the  summer  they  cool. 

And  they  smile  with  the  spring. 
But   saddest   and   sweetest   of   all   they  call   through   the 

autumn's  wild  splendor 
When  our  gifts  to  her  altar  of  light  with  the  months 

and  the  minutes  we  bring; 
All  that  playtime  and  sorrow  have  sealed  to  the  service 

of  life  that  is  king. 

S.S.  Au-a  Maru  11-28-13 


MACHINE  MADE 

WIRES    and    rails    and    paving    stones,    bricks    and 
mortar,   plaster,   glass: 
We  have  made  a  world  of  them.     We  have  done  with 

trees  and  grass, 
Flowers    and    sunrise    and    delight,    seas    and    stars   and 

mountain  tops. 

We  wind  on  from  day  to  night,  through  this  treadmill 
till  one  drops. 


We  walk   other  people's  ways,   trodden   hard   and   hard 

to  tread. 
We  live  other  people's  days,  crowded,  airless,  chill  and 

dead. 
We  hear  other  people's  noise,  numbing  nerves  and  heart 

and  mind ; 
Envy  other  people's  joys,  unexpected,  unresigned: 


Stare  at  other  people's  clothes,  furs  and  feathers,  silk 
and  lace; 

See  what  other  people  see,  in  each  blank,  machine-made 
face, 

Painted,  powdered,  newly  gilt,  tailor's  dummies  for  the 
rest: 

Watching  other's  roses  wilt,  by  their  passion  mad  pos 
sessed  : 


240 


MACHINE  MADE  241 

Once  a  month,  or  once  a  year,  in  some  supper  room  at 

night, 

Wasting  other  people's  cheer,  stealing  other  people's  light. 
Turning  life  to  foaming  wine  and  empty  bottles.     We 

awake. 
Reading   other   people's   lies,   up   to   town   our   task   we 

take. 

All   the  old  machine-made  things  we  who  nothing  new 

devise 
Do.     The  soul  in  us  that  sings,  sighs  and  sickens,  droops 

and  dies. 
Other  people's  lusts  we  live,   printed,  bound,  at  second 

hand. 
Other   people's   sins   forgive,    who   their   slaves   of   habit 

stand. 

Murders,  treasons,  tyrannies,  maimings,  blindings,  brand 
ing,  all; 

In  our  cheap  machine-made  ease;  all  things  petty,  tame 
and  small 

Manufactured  for  today,  by  the  million;  we  retail, 

Advertise  and  toss  away  in  a  world  for  rent  or  sale. 

Other  people's  souls  we  sell,  buy  or  barter  for  our  own. 
Other   people's   heaven   or   hell,   doubt   or   dig.     All    life 
alone, 


242  MACHINE  MADE 

Out  of  other   people's  sight,   like  our  youth   long  since 

gone  by: 
Other  people's  day  and  night  \ve  are  drugged  with  till 

we  die. 

New  York,  7- //-/./ 


THE  EARTH  MAN 

AFTER    A    STATUE    BY    LOUIS    POTTER 

WISTFUL,   blind,   brooding,  silent,   he  stands; 
All   the  long  strength  of  earth  creeping   to 

light, 

Holding  its  substance  in  huge,  heavy  hands, 
Groping  a  path  to  the  portals  of  sight. 

Earth  that  is  slow  in  him  fetters  his  feet. 
Rooted  in  soil  like  the  life  of  the  trees, 
Brother  of  mountains,  inert,  incomplete, 
Fitted  to  struggle  and  grow  by  degrees; 

He  is  the  past  that  to  rise  is  compelled, 
Pressure  of  glaciers  and  lava's  slow  flow ; 
Brain  of  the  brute  from  black  caverns  expelled 
Into  the  open,  its  Maker  to  know. 

He  is  five  fingers  that  stretch  till  they  touch. 
He  is  a  horror  that  shudders  and  hides. 
He  is  a  need  that  must  grapple  and  clutch, 
Vital  and  sure  as  the  turn  of  the  tides. 

Sounds  beat  like  hammers,  and  batter  his  ears; 
Surf  in  its  rages,  and  rivers  that  run, 
Roaring  of  beasts;  till  above  them  he  hears 
The  song  of  a  bird  like  the  soul  of  the  sun: 
245 


246  THE  EARTH  MAN 

Something  that  urges  him  up  and  afar, 
Summons  his  spirit  to  lust  and  to  hate, 
Lunge  through  the  shadows  to  capture  a  star, 
Hunt  till  he  holds  her,  his  woman  and  mate. 

He  is  alone  though  his  heart  knows  it  not, 
Bound  by  blind  hunger  of  belly  and  nerves; 
Child  of  the  ages  that  blackness  begot; 
He  is  Tomorrow  whose  Master  he  serves. 

New  York,  1-26-12 


AVRORA 

AFTER    A    STATUE    BY    LOUIS    POTTER 

SI  1  K   is  the  sunrise  of  the  waking  earth, 
Naked  and  perfect  as  a  perfect  flower, 
Fearless   and    poised    to   meet    the   light's    embrace. 
For  in  her  eyes  a  soul  has  come  to  birth 
Fresh  from  its  sleep  and  fragrant,  every  hour 
Of  love's  delights  fore-shadowed  in  her  face. 

She  is  the  essence  of  all  loveliness, 
Of  every  spring  time.     Every  flower  and   fruit 
That  grew  before  her  gladly  to  the  light 
Made  her  immortal.     Terror  and  distress 
Toiled    in   the   blackness   to   transmute   the   brute, 
To  make  her  beauty   wonderful   and   white. 

She  is  the  moon's  last  beam,  the  gleam  of  dew 
That   mirrors  dawn   while  shadows  shroud   the   grass, 
The  rose  of  fire  that  reddens  winter's  rime; 
Radiance  of  sunsets  and  of  rainbows  too, 
Of  all  things  perfect  that  appear  and  pass, 
Transient  and  deathless  till  the  end  of  time. 

In   her  all  river  currents  harmonize 
With    rippling  pools  that   eddy   round   her   breasts, 
And   winds  that  whisper  trembling  through  her  hair. 
And  the  long  lines  from  shoulders  through  to  thighs 

247 


248  AURORA 

Break  as  the  waves  break.     Into  curving  crests 
Around  her  rise  caressing  tides  of  air. 

She  is  a  symphony,  the  sum  of  joy 
Shaped  in  one  body  for  the  world  to  see, 
To  learn  from  her  forever  to  rejoice. 
She  is  the  smile  no  sorrow  can  destroy 
Warm  on  the  lips  of  all  humanity 
Waiting  to  hear  the  wonder  of  her  voice. 

New  York,  1-29-12 


THE  GOLDEN  GIRL 

AFTER   A   STATUE    BY   RUDOLPH    EVANS 

FIVK  thousand  years  of  sculpture  fashioned  her; 
Consummate,   simple,   modern  and   as  old 
As  Myron's  bronzes.     All  her  flesh  is  gold, 
She  seems  to  hear  her  sisters'  footsteps  stir. 

Shy  dryads  gaze  at  her  from  old  gray  trees; 
Truth  in  one  girl,  eternal  as  today; 
One  man's  pure  passion  that  transfused   her  clay, 
Turned  her  to  bronze  to  stand  through  centuries. 

She  bathes  in  living  sunlight  all   day  long. 
She   feels  the  wonder  of  the   world.     She  knows 
The  mysteries  of  sunsets  and  of  snows. 
She  hears  the  rapture  of  the  river's  song. 

Around  her  linger  long  all  tender  things; 
The  clouds'  slow  shadows  falling  at  her  feet, 
The  level  rays  of  dawn,  the  summons  sweet 
Of  every  winged  soul  that  soars  and  sings. 

She  listens  still  until  her  pilgrims  come. 
Children  shall  smile  to  see  her  loveliness; 
And  mothers  meeting  her  that  hour  shall  bless. 
Poets  shall  praise  her  out  of  lips  long  dumb. 

249 


250  THE  GOLDEN  GIRL 

For  she  is  beauty,  born  today  to  be 
The  human  sister  of  the  stars  and  snows, 
The  soul  of  love  that  smoulders  in  the  rose; 
That  one  man  felt,  and  gave  to  all  to  see. 

Paris,  4-1-14 


THE  GARGOYLES 

Tl  I I  .Y    made    a    house    for    holiness,    they    raised    a 
spire  for  prayer, 

With  beasts  of  the  Apocalypse  around  it  in  the  air. 
The  beasts  of  the  Evangelist,  man,  eagle,  lion  and  ox, 
They  carved   upon  their  pinnacles  as  nature  carved   her 

rocks 

With  fire  and  frost.     And  heat  and  cold,  their  substance 
slowly  wear. 


The  rains  are  raised  to  ravage  them.     The  fingers  of  the 

storm 
Have  felt  their  flesh  and  found  it  firm.     When  all  the 

world  is  warm, 
When  summer  swelters,   Paris  pants,  the  Seine  is  small 

and  old ; 
The  fiends  rip  thunder  from  the  air,  and  sudden  shafts 

of  cold. 
Like  wasps  that  stab  the  firmament,  the  yellow  lightnings 

swarm. 

The  floods  are  loosed,  the  thunder  rolls,  the  gutters  choke 

below ; 

Above,  about  the  pinnacles,  the  gusts  begin  to  blow. 
The  arrows  of  the  storm  have  reached  the  steep  cathedral 

roof. 
The  devils  dance.     They  tread  the  tiles.     They  put  them 

to  the  proof, 

251 


252  THE  GARGOYLES 

Till  the  tall  columns  of  the  nave  shall  tremble  where 
they  go. 

And  then  the  gargoyles  gurgle  loud,  through  throats  that 

long  were  dry. 
Through  the  hot  Tophet  of  the  time  that  flamed  to  full 

July. 
They  saw  the  sun  that  filled  the  sky,  that  flared  high 

overhead, 
Below  they  saw  the  asphalt  ooze.     They  smelt  the  fumes 

of  lead. 
The  wind  became  a  blowpipe  flame  that  blustered  through 

the  sky. 

The  fiends  that  perched  laid  hold  on  them.  And  now 
the  dry  ness  drains 

The  water  from  the  living  rock,  slow  drops  from  granite 
veins, 

Till  in  a  thousand  thunder  claps  the  airs  of  heaven  ex 
plode; 

Till  the  gargoyles  glut  with  gladness  like  the  gutters  in 
the  road, 

And  they  swim  with  life  that,  laughing,  takes  its  pleasure 
for  its  pains. 

The  beasts  of  the  Apocalypse,  both  blessed  and  accursed, 
Range   round   the  spire   of   Notre   Dame.     The   winged 
man  stands  first. 


THE  GARGOYLES  253 

The  eagle,  ox  and  lion  there  processionals  hegin ; 
The  pelican  for  charity,  the  basilisk  for  sin. 
But  oldest  and  most  grim  of  all,  the  gargoyles  gray  are 
thirst. 

Paris, 


THE  STONE  PILE 

had  once  seen  it  on  a  road  to  France; 
Man  barely  more  than  cave  man  hammering; 
Breaking  his  stones  to  fit  his  iron  ring: 
Deaf  to  all  sounds,  to  all  the  winds  that  sing; 
Beating  the  time  for  manhood's  slow  advance: 

Making  his  stone  pile.     Vermin  breeding  there 
Festered  and  rotted,  dying  in  the  dark. 
He  never  knew  them,  striking  spark  on  spark, 
Lost  seeds  of  light.     He  never  paused  to  hark 
To  man's  new  motors  drumming  through  the  air. 

But  once  a  woman  singing  went  her  way, 
Singing  of  loves  and  lullabies  to  be. 
He  heard  her  carelessly.     He  seemed  to  see 
Things  that  belonged  to  lives  more  large  and  free. 
And  then  his  smile  was  like  the  last  of  day. 

We  have  made  stone  piles  in  our  prison  walls. 
We  have  made  stone  piles  in  our  city  streets 
Where  life  that  breeds  and   festers,   life  defeats, 
Where  the  dull  heart  of  labor  blindly  beats, 
Deaf  to  the  winds  and  all  the  world  that  calls: 

Piling  our  cities;  to  an  iron  ring. 
Fitting  the  stuff  that  binds  our  road  today 
Lost  to  the  open,  vistas  far  away, 

254 


THE  STONE  PILE  255 

Valiant  adventures,  prayers  that  lovers  say, 
Seeing  one  woman  singing  in  the  spring: 

Piling  our  cities;  manhood  far  and  near 
Shaping  the  stones  that  larger  lives  shall  tread 
Beside  the  road  where  men  that  march  ahead 
Call  us  in  vain,  who  die  among  the  dead 
Till  life,  our  love  at  last  stands  singing  here. 

\«  u    York,  6-j  ;-/  / 


FLEET  MANOEUVRES 

THEY    keep    their    intervals    as    true    as    seasoned 
athletes  of  a  team, 
Trained  to  the  minute.     Lean  and  grim  and  gray  they 

glide  in  line  ahead. 
A  white  wave  welters  at  each  bow.     And  all  is  stirless 

overhead 

Save  trails  of  smoke  that  from  three  tall  gray  funnels  fall 
and  landward  stream. 


Like  runners  breathing  tensely  through  October's  stirring 

air  they  go. 
They  are  as  vital  and  alive ;  and  like  the  winds  they  seem 

to  wake, 
As  packed  with  power  that  must  explode;  as  imminent  as 

waves  that  break. 
And  shadows  long  float  on  before  their  long  and  strong 

and  level  row. 

Essential,   cosmic,  wonderful,   in  strange  new  beauty  fit 

to  serve 
An  iron  purpose  slowly  spelled,  a  living  sentence  of  the 

law, 
That   wakes   the   lightnings  and    the   stars;   and   sterner 

tensions  slowly  draw 
Through  the  vast  void  of  sound  and  sense,  and  tighten 

every  tingling  nerve. 

256 


FLEET  MJXOSUrRES  257 

Man's  old  dominion  over  fire,  his  truceless  conquest  of  the 
cold, 

His  mastery  of  storms  and  tides,  his  perils  long  in  chart- 
less  seas; 

His  midnight  battles  with  the  brute,  his  wars  of  all  the 
centuries, 

Their  shifting  turrets  still  conceal,  their  lips  of  steel  in 
silence  hold. 

All  speaks  in  thunder  when  at  last  the  flagship's  salvos 

shake  the  air. 
Precise  and   searching,   shot  on   shot,   the   target   strikes. 

Her  soul  set  free 
Like  heroes'  hearts  in  battle  born,  by  smoke  wreaths  haloed 

splendidly 
Drifts  down  the  line  as  ship  on  ship  to  God  begins  its 

iron  prayer. 

Ship  after  ship  makes  offering  of  discipline  and   fitness 

trained 
To  peril's  service;  ship  on  ship  thunders  the  law  that  all 

obey 
In   war   and   peace,   whose   God   is  strength   and   larger 

wisdom  day  by  day. 
Ship   after  ship   in   silence  goes   to  goals   that   yesterday 

ordained. 


258  FLEET  MAXCEUTRES 

Twelve   steel   cathedrals   of   today,   sail    trailing    incense 

silently 

Into  the  west's  horizon  red,  to  sentinel  a  nation's  sleep; 
Twelve  monasteries  stern  of  men  that  vigils  through  the 

midnight  keep; 
For   God,   whose  cities  shame  the  land,  still  saves   His 

servants  on  the  sea. 

Peconic,  7-12-14 


GLOUCESTER  SCHOONERS 

THEY    come   shining    through    the   morning   like   a 
troop  of  laughing  girls. 

Under  each  soaring  forefoot  the  flashing  water  curls. 
They  have  slipped  before  the  sunrise  from  the  shadow- 
lands  of  night, 

And  the  east  is  red  behind  them,  and  their  sails  are  rose 
and  white. 


They  come   from   the   Banks  and   the  breakers  and   the 

meshes  blind  of  mist, 
Where  mermaids  in  the  midnight  the  sailor's  lips  have 

kissed 
Asleep  in  his  drifting  dory.     And  white  hands  drag  him 

down, 
With  snows  that  smooth  the  surges,  and  the  dreams  of 

men  they  drown. 

They  come  with  a  toll  and  a  tribute  that  men  from  ocean 

take 
With  the  roll  of  wrecks  in  winter,  and  women's  hearts 

that  break 
When  they  wake  in  the  wild  northeasters,  and  hear  on 

their  Gloucester  shore 
The  roar  of  the  surf  that  beaches  the  bergs  on  Labrador. 

They  come  from  the  wild  sea  witches  who  mortal  women 
hate, 

259 


26o  GLOUCESTER  SCHOONERS 

Who  troll  the  shores  for  their  fishing  with  the  sea  bass 

for  their  bait. 
Out  of   the   deep   to  the  shallows,  where  stirless  water 

hides 
Rocks  that  are  hooks  for  their  hunger,  and  the  torments 

white  of  tides. 

They  come  with  the  blood  of  the  Vikings,  boys  that  have 

grown  through  gales, 
Where  death  on  the  crest  of  the  breakers  poises  his  weighted 

scales, 
Men  who  have  wrought  with  the  east  wind,  as  a  fish  is 

hooked  and  played, 
And  danced  at  the  dawn  with  danger  and  wooed  her  like 

a  maid. 

They  come  on  the  wings  of  the  morning  like  a  flock  of 
homing  birds, 

And  hearts  go  out  to  meet  them,  and  prayers  and  whispered 
words. 

They  come  like  a  choir.     And  their  singing  and  the  twang 
ing  of  their  stays, 

Is  a  lied  of  the  Lord  of  landfalls,  and   of  storms,  and 

nights  and  days. 
Los  Angeles,  11-12-1$ 


THE  ROAD 

GOD  who  made  the  mountains  and  a  wall  to  call  us 
up    to    Him,    made    the    passes    over    them    and 

choked  their  pates  with  snow, 
Made  His  storm  winds  winnow  forth  the  strong  and  sure 

of  heart  of  us,  made  the  cold  of  starless  skies  to 

sift  the  weak  below. 
Then   He  sent  His  rivers  forth  to  pioneer  a  breach  for 

us.     Then  He  made  the  trees  that  should  give  men 

fire  and  heat. 
Larches,  firs  and  pines,  marching  up  to  meet  the  avalanche, 

to  wrestle  with  the  storm  winds,  and  with  winter's 

white  defeat: 
In  their  shade  by  millions  made  His  blossoms,  small  and 

sweet. 

Climbing  through  the  passes  come  the  creatures  that  pass 

over  them,  mountain  goats  and  mountain  sheep  and 

mountain  cattle  lean. 
Mountain  lions,  gray  ghosts  of  hunger,  stalking  stealthily. 

So   they   trod   their  trails  all   the  vales  of  earth 

between, 
So  they  crossed  the  glaciers  to  the  summons  of  the  years 

to  be,  apes  that  shedding  hair  their  life's  restless 

road  surveyed, 
Running  east  and  west,  from  the  northern  to  the  southern 

sea,  following  the  air  lanes  that  the  birds  of  passage 

made, 

261 


2b2  THE  ROAD 

Chased   by   gulls   from   rookeries  and  crags  by   breakers 
sprayed. 

All  the  ships  that  sail  the  sea  were  launched  to  serve  this 

road  of  ours.     Rome  was  built  to  build  it  and  to 

pave  its  ruts  with  stone. 
All  the  tribes  that  triumphed  bore  their  spoils  to  swell 

this  load  of  ours.     All   the  slaves  of  failure  fell 

and  died  in  dust  alone. 
Dust  and  rain  were  turned  to  mud,  that  stopped  the  cracks 

and  chinks  of  it ;  so  the  road  was  wrested  from  the 

wastage  of  defeat. 
Dust  that  red  with  running  blood  that  renews  the  earth 

that  drinks  of  it.     And  the  tribes  began  to  battle 

on,  once  more  the  light  to  meet, 
Toward   the   morning,   toward   the   summit,   toward   the 

snow  peaks;  from  the  street. 

Carthage,   Tyre  and   Sidon   gave  their  gold   to   gain   its 

maintainance ;  Greece  made  fair  its  reaches  with 

her  shrines  beside  the  way, 
White  between  the  olives,  till  the  cross  was  planted  over 

it,  standing  at  each  cross   road  of  the  soul   that 

strives  with  clay. 
Saracens,  Crusaders  came  and  struggled  up  each  mile  of 

it.     War  wins  here  its  summit,  there  despair  to 

ruin  rolls. 


THE  ROAD  263 

Conquerors  of  centuries  grew  weary  for  a  while  of  it. 

Hannibal,  Napoleon,  and  Caesar  paid   their  tolls, 
To  this  road  that  takes  our  time,  and  paves  success  with 

souls. 


Now  at  last  an  iron  road  goes  over  and  goes  under  it. 

Men   have   tunnelled   winter   and   the  mountain's 

heart  of  stone. 
Nature  stands  half  tamed  today.     Men  learn  to  stab  and 

sunder  it.     But  the  road  still  scales  the  summits 

where  the  strongest  stand  alone. 
Motor  cars  and  dynamite  may  make  their  passing  mock 

of  it.     The  weak  may  seek  their  tunnels.     But  the 

mountains  and  the  cold 
Lure  men   from  the  mob  to  learn  the  languor  and  the 

shock  of  it,  to  wrestle  with  the  storm  winds  as  our 

fathers  fought  of  old, 
Till  they  tramp  to  the  tall  portals  of  the  sunset's  house 

of  gold. 

Here  we  glimpse  Valhalla,  and  the  splendor  and  the  sheen 

of  it.     And  the  zig-zags  grow  more  steep.     At  last 

they  leap  from  cloud  to  cloud. 
Here  we  hear  Valkyries  in  the  twilight.     And  the  lean 

of  it  is  our  tent  wall  till  tomorrow  when  the  winds 

at  dusk  are  bowed. 


264  THE  ROAD 

Worshipping  the  stars  above,  our  zig-zags  to  eternity,  and 

men   that  out  of  ocean  and   its  slime,   inert  and 

dumb, 
Out  of  night  and  ether  blind,  climbing,  come  their  road  to 

find.     The  dying  lift  the  living,  with  their  lips 

and  fingers  numb. 
Till  death  is  but  one  milestone  dark  to  wider  worlds  to 

come. 

Paris,  7-3-13 


THE  Ol'ERLAND  TRAIL 

IT  began  in  blood  of  Vikings,  far  beyond  the 
Alleghenies.  North  and  south  along  the  shore  line 
from  the  surges  of  the  sea, 

Through  the  forests,  past  the  mountains,  rose  the  impulse 
of  a  nation.  From  the  farms  and  from  the  cities 
strode  its  sons  whose  sires  were  free, 

Down  the  rivers  running  westward,  poled  their  rafts  be 
yond  the  rapids.  Out  beyond  the  Mississippi 
prairie  schooners  setting  sail, 

Seen  like  ships  along  the  sky  line,  met  the  prairie  fires  and 
vanished  in  the  floods  of  flame,  that  roaring,  swept 
like  rivers  past  the  trail. 

Hut  the  tide  of  man  was  stronger.  On  they  swept  and 
passed  the  prairies,  till  their  starving  cattle,  falling 
where  the  vultures  fed,  lay  dead. 

Circling  round  them  like  the  whirlwind,  the  Cheyennes 
and  Comanches  in  red  spirals  of  despair,  rode  on 
behind  them  and  ahead. 

Day  and  night  across  the  prairies,  stakes  of  flame  where 
men  and  women  writhed  in  torment  were  their 
milestones.  O'er  the  ashes  of  lost  lives 

They  went  on.  And  thirst  and  hunger  rode  beside  them. 
Fear  and  fever  were  their  children  in  the  wagons 
where  the  smallpox  slew  their  wives. 


266  THE  OVERLAND  TRAIL 

They  went  on  and  found  the  foothills.  Where  the 
warders  of  the  mountains  raised  their  mile  high  wall 
before  them,  through  the  pass  their  column  poured. 

And  they  rested  by  the  wayside,  where  white  torrents  from 
the  snow-fields  foamed  through  shadows  of  the  hill 
sides,  in  green  valleys,  blossom  floored. 

Here  they  halted  for  a  heartbeat  of  the  blood  that  bore 
them  onward;  got  their  breath,  their  gear  refitted; 
grappled  with  the  great  divide, 

Where  the  storm  winds  and  the  lightnings  lashed  them 
back  on  crumbling  ledges,  where  sheer  cliffs  that 
fell  forever,  walled  them  in  on  either  side. 

They  went  on,  and  in  the  desert,  death  lay  waiting,  darkly 
shrouded  in  the  sand  storm.  And  he  slew  them 
by  his  poisoned  water  holes ; 

Lured  them  on  with  lost  mirages.  Stripped  and  maddened 
they  lay  dying  where  he  branded  them  and  seared 
them  with  the  flame  that  flays  men's  souls: 

But  the  strongest  struggled  onward,  over  fields  of  rotting 
lava.  Giant  cacti  rose  before  them  like  gray  ten 
tacles  of  death. 

They  went  on  and  slipped  between  them,  woke  once  more 
and  saw  the  mountains;  where  the  trail  led  to  the 
summit,  gazed  once  more  and  gathered  breath. 


THE  OVERLAID  TRAIL  267 

They  were  strong  but  time  was  stronger,  and  he  wore 
them  down  by  inches  until  winter  filled  the  passes 
with  his  wild  white  ambuscades. 

Where  the  blizzard  crested  mountains,  like  a  seething  sea 
that  freezing  skyward  whirls  its  spray,  were  reel 
ing;  in  the  welter,  up  the  grades 

They  went  on  on  feet  that  freezing  bled ;  and  breathlessly 
and  falling,  dying,  with  their  broken  bodies  blazed 
the  trail  till  others  came. 

And  their  bones,  as  white  as  winter,  bare  and  bleaching  in 
the  sunshine,  lined  the  passes,  when  the  summer 
swept  the  mountains  like  a  flame. 

I  hey  marched  on,  beyond  the  mountains,  coastward  strid 
ing  o'er  the  ranges,  till  their  leaders,  in  the  sunlight, 
looking  westward  saw  the  sea: 

Till  the  blood  that  bore  them  forward,  throbbing  onward 
to  the  ocean,  to  the  heartbeat  of  the  breakers, 
labored  on,  from  labor  free: 

Till  their  strongest  on  the  shore-line  felt  the  trail  that  they 
had  finished  stretching  from  the  far  Atlantic  with 
its  chain  of  deathless  days, 

Like  a  chain  of  living  wampum,  red  with  bloodshed,  black 
with  horror,  gray  with  sorrow ;  in  the  struggles  of 
their  sons  should  live  always. 


268  THE  OJ'ERLJND  TRAIL 

This  they  wrought  before  the  railroad,  ere  the  wires  were 
strung  that  whisper  in  the  darkness  through  the 
desert:  ere  our  trail  of  steel  we  laid. 

Like  the  heartstring  of  a  nation,  strong  and  deathless  and 
enduring,  something  mightier  than  millions,  in 
their  day  our  fathers  made. 

In  this  last  great  folk  migration,  westward  still  the  millions 
striving  follow  where  the  old  frontiersmen  lit 
their  fires  and  dreamed  their  dreams. 

And  their  spirits,  past  the  prairies,  marching  on  beyond  the 
mountains,  trace  a  trail  that  runs  forever,  while  one 
lamp  of  freedom  gleams. 

Los  Angeles,  10-17-13 


THE  OLD  HOUSE 

EARTH  that  loves  you,  all  of  you  gave  her  bones  to 
make  me  strong. 

Sweating,  dust-white  quarry  men  toiled  through  summer 
sunlight  long. 

Masons  made  and  rooted  me  to  my  hillside.  Winter 
nights 

Storming  legions  loosed  in  vain.  Spring  brought  April's 
shy  delights. 

Lilacs  blossomed  in  my  shade.  Autumn  stored  my  cup 
boards.  So 

I  your  fort  of  life  was  made;  I  your  school  where  love 
should  grow. 


Birds  have  nested  in  my  trees,  summer  trysting  from  the 

South, 
Till  your  fathers  learned  of  life  how  to  love,  till  heart 

and  mouth 
Sang  their  silent  ecstasies.     Girls  their  garlands  round  my 

walls 
Round   ancestral   portraits   hung,   wreathed   my   mirrors; 

heard  my  calls. 

All  your  vigils  lone  I  know.     All  your  hopes  and  agonies, 
Every  prayer  and  travail  pang.     I  am  heir  to  all  of  these. 

I  have  borne  your  children  all,  echoed  laughter  light,  and 
tears. 

269 


270  THE  OLD  HOUSE 

Little  feet  along  my  shadowed  corridors  have  crept  through 

years ; 
Climbed  my   footworn  steps.     I  sent  all  your  strongest 

forth  to  fight ; 
Out  of  toil  and  banishment  led  them  home  through  storm 

and  night; 

Lent  defeat  a  resting  place ;  saw  the  bearers  of  your  dead ; 
Heard  the  troubled  spirit  pass  shuddering  where  horror 

led. 


Spirit  finger  tips  I  felt  tapping  at  a  lighted  window  pane, 

When  the  year's  last  snow  drifts  melted ;  through  the  rush 
of  winter  rain 

Watched  my  masters  staggering,  blinded  by  the  fumes  of 
sin 

Thresholds  bare  and  cold  defiling.  Shrinking  famine  en 
tered  in, 

Where  pale  women  whispering,  watched  my  dying  embers 
fall. 

I  was  hungry  with  their  hearts.  I  have  lived  and  loved  it 
all. 

Frosts   besieged    me.     One   by   one   winds  my   outworks 

whipped  away; 
Till  you  wandered  round  the  world,  came  and  claimed  me 

yesterday ; 


THE  OLD  HOUSE  271 

Found  my  shrine  of  memories,  dreamed  of  children  kneel 
ing  where 

Moonlight  tremhling  crept  to  them;  made  my  grayest 
gardens  fair; 

Voice  to  dusty  volumes  gave,  past  my  crumbling  lintels 
stole ; 

Let  new  fire  my  hearthstones  lave:  to  my  body  brought  a 
soul. 

Shanghai,  1-14-14 


ENPOY 

VI7E  are  weak  children  of  a  larger  day 

»  *      That  just  begins  to  dawn.     How  shall  we  serve, 
Strive  to  leave  something  when  life  ebbs  away, 
Stronger  than  we  were,  where  light's  last  reserve 
Struggles  with  midnight  through  each  shaking  nerve? 

How  shall  we  bring  one  word  that  lifts  the  heart, 
Reveal  one  vision  of  a  life  divine 
Boundless  as  air  we  breathe,  whose  wasted  art 
Plays  with  life's  toys  behind  its  battle  line? 
How  shall  we  sound  here  Heaven's  countersign  ? 

We  have  not  toiled  to  lay  life's  cornerstones, 
Fashioned  of  steel  its  bridges  that  shall  last ; 
Snatched  life  from  death  where  the  sick  city  groans. 
We  have  not  sent  life's  summons  speeding  fast 
Through  wires  that  thrill  all  seas  and  deserts  past. 

We  have  not  charted  stars  nor  chained  the  storms; 
Sorted  God's  atoms  for  man's  triumph  new; 
Saw  how  salvation  new  in  test  tubes  forms; 
Passed  thought's  vast  armies  through  today's  review ; 
Marshalled  the  leaders  of  that  host  for  you. 

Yet  this  remains.     We  have  not  played  with  lies, 
Traded  the  truth,  despaired  nor  doubted  long; 
Feared  lest  man  fail  at  last  to  scale  the  skies ; 

272 


ENfOY  273 

Who  dies  today,  tomorrow  grows  more  strong, 
Out  of  all  agonies  of  pain  and  wrong. 

We  have  known  life  and  found  her  lovelier 
Than  stars  or  roses,  sunrise,  tender  eyes; 
Held  in  our  heart  the  throbbing  heart  of  her; 
Out  of  her  storms  and  flames  and  battle  cries, 
Caught  one  new  note  of  truth  that  never  dies. 

8-25-14 


'•.MV!;KsITYOPCAI.!F()K>x,A    UBK'XL'Y 
BEBKEJ 

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